It's a Good Thing
by Wordlet
Summary: Many have seen Luffy's smile, some unfortunates have witnessed his anger, but very few have seen his desperation, his fear. Sometimes one must wonder, where does it all go? Apparently, a certain crew is about to figure it out, not by choice, of course. Why would they choose to be saddled with Luffy, age 7 and up? Nakamaship. Mem fic meets Chibi fic. A Big Bang production. 2016
1. Prologue

**A Big Bang production, 2016.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own one Piece... as the quality of the following work will likely make all to clear.**

He forgot it was tomorrow.

He couldn't believe he'd really forgotten; almost forgotten. For twelve years he'd reacted to the date accordingly, saying a quick prayer to the skies, staying silent and as solemn as he ever got for a short time to show he respected the life and death, and usually he gave a small offering. Often the whole week prior he spent moping and immersed in memories of him.

But this year he'd nearly forgotten.

Luffy's hands went to his hat, for comfort, for relief. His fingers flexed the straw, bending the weave in frustration as he sought for some semblance of solace. It was _wrong_ to forget. His knees slowly bent and he lowered himself to the floor. It was all these dates, so many. All in a row. Rapid fire. Gatling.

His back met the seat and he leaned into it with a sigh. He needed some structure, otherwise, he might lose the will he had employed to keeping his form and he'd dribble down into a deformed rubber puddle on the floorboards.

His birthday was first. The last two years had been lonely, particularly on his birthday. Rayleigh couldn't be bothered by a birthday. They were training to get stronger. He agreed with that; he hadn't wanted to stop anyway. His nakama didn't know his birthday. Maybe he should tell them and they'd throw a big party, maybe. But it was late. Next year, maybe.

And the date his nakama were blown away; when they were all separated. That hadn't been hard last year; he'd been busy. But this year he'd been worried. What if someone mixed up the date? What if someone came a week too late? What if Zoro got lost?

Then was Ace. Two years ago was the last time he'd seen his brother breathing. Last time he'd seen him at all. He'd powered through it the last two years, with sufficient crying and hard reality checks. Rayleigh had helped him through the first anniversary, but this year he'd sat on a cliff and cried for most of the day.

And now, Sabo. Twelve years ago Sabo had sailed out in his fishing boat and sailed the black flag. That was the only day he'd been able to. He was gone as well.

Two death days and a birthday. Nice. He wished it was _his_ death day and Sabo's birthday. Wished it was Ace's birthday. Wished it was two birthdays and one death.

But it was what it was, and he'd nearly forgotten.

What kind of brother was he?

He clenched his fingers around the brim of his hat, reminded himself that it was only a few weeks ago that the anniversary of their toast had happened, that had been one of the happiest days of his life. And his birthday doubled as the day he set sail, another time when he couldn't have been much happier.

But he could feel it. Feel that helplessness that he rolled into a little ball and stuffed away in the farthest corner of his mind. He was a Captain; he was a pirate. He'd cried enough, and he was back with his crew, and he needed to stop this. What happened, happened. No regrets.

With a shuddering breath, he pushed off from the seat to his feet and pasted a smile onto his face.

The next step forward was supposed to be just that. Forward, away from the grief and the past. The past didn't matter. His muscles stretched and pulled at his movement, tense and ready to run. He walked. He didn't have time to grieve today anyway. His crew couldn't see. It was best he forget about the date- all of them. They didn't matter.

The pressure of his grief against the door he'd locked it behind increased tenfold; the wood splintered, the wave flowed out and unleashed. The sob he hadn't realized had been hiding crawled out of his throat and he stumbled.

Beneath the tension, he finally snapped.


	2. First impressions

**Chapter 1**

Usopp chews on his fist, blocking the yawn from escaping his mouth as he stumbles out of the kitchen and onto the grassy deck. The night air is cool on his skin, and the sea spray stings a little with the frigidity. He misses his warm hammock already.

Shutting his mouth he meanders towards the main mast and looks straight up at the top. It's a ninety-degree angle, and no matter how many times he's climbed it, Usopp still gets nervous when he thinks about climbing to the top- or to the bottom, for that matter.

Another cold breath of wind to the back of his neck is enough to urge him onto the climbing pegs that lead up to the Observation room. The wood is worn smooth, which he was happy about at first, (he could stop getting splinters from the new wood!) but he quickly learned that smooth wood was slippery, and that was not what he wanted. Nevertheless, he's done this enough times that after a few pegs up, he doesn't much notice the height he's gaining, and he knows well enough not to look down. He does look up though, not at the Observation room, but at the sky above it. Clouds are moving in on the clear night, and the stars are getting fuzzy at the touch of haze that comes with the edges of each cloud. He knows land must be relatively close because he can hear a seagull off at some short distance, cawing and squawking as it travels over the sea.

He sneezes and wonders idly which one of his followers is thinking about him right now, or if it's a bounty hunter thinking about Sogeking.

At the top of the mast is the promise of a warm room, a number of blankets, and a probably drifting Luffy who tends to get chatty and eager to snuggle the more tired he gets. That is enough to make Usopp pick up the pace till he reaches the trap door in the bottom of the observation room, pushing it open with shivering fingers and pulling himself inside to relish the warmth and the glory that is Franky's brain in running heating up here.

"Alright Luffy, my shift. No, I did not bring snacks." Usopp speaks through another yawn, pulling himself totally onto the floor of the observation room and shuts the door behind him, sealing the cold air out and the warm air in. There's a quiet snuffling that is Luffy moving around in blankets and offering him a half conscious reply and Usopp chuckles. It's not the first time Luffy's fallen asleep on watch, he's just lucky Nami isn't coming to relieve him, or Sanji. He stands and stretches, rubbing his eyes and stepping gingerly over a few of the scattered weights on the floor. It would be cleaner, if only because Nami or Robin would pick them up and put them away after a while, except half of them are too heavy for anyone but Zoro or Luffy to lift. He plops down on the seat next to the huge jumble of blankets and a tuft of black hair that is the fearsome captain of the straw hat pirates.

"You should be careful about when you fall asleep," He cautions good-naturedly, "Imagine if I were Nami or Sanji, sent to check up on you? Or if I a monster?" He laughs, picking the spyglass off the seat and giving the ocean surrounding Sunny a quick scan, just to make sure Luffy didn't really miss anything important. "I guess you could beat up a monster pretty easily, but the way you're snoring right now you might just sleep through it." He laughs again, and Luffy mumbles in his sleep, though it sounds a bit agitated, and Usopp wonders if perhaps he's not half asleep, but completely, and sleep talking to boot.

Annoyed, he shoves the lump in the blankets that he thinks is Luffy's shoulder.

"Hey now, don't sleep while I have to stay awake! Talk to…" His request sputters to a halt as the blanket slides and Luffy sits up, rubbing his eyes.

Or maybe he's not Luffy.

The toddler (ok, probably older than a toddler, but listen, this kid is like, three feet tall!) is yawning, rubbing at his eyes and looking around the room as though he's trying to orient himself in a place he knows, only to find that he doesn't know it at all. Swaddled (it's the only word for it, really) in a few blankets and Luffy's red shirt and sash. The shorts are there too, but they're just hardly on, not as swaddling as the shirt, and to be honest the shirt is plenty, loose as it fits on Luffy, or, the kid…

Ussop jerks back as the kid angled his gaze up at him, blinking wide brown eyes and the edge of a smile tugging at his lips.

He knows it's Luffy because the kid is making the same face Luffy makes when he wakes up and sees someone he likes.

"Hi! I'm Luffy, who the heck are you!"

The scar pretty much seals the deal too.

 **~1~**

It is to a shrill shriek that Nami's body responds, sitting bolt upright as her eyes blow wide in panic, lending her immediate clear vision.

On the other side of the room, Robin lifts her head from the desk with a jerk, waking up at the sound, the pages of her book flipping closed without her head to keep them apart. They exchange a moment's glance before Nami tosses the covers to the floor and Robin swivels in the chair to follow the navigator as she throws the door open and charges down the hall, Robin pausing to put on slippers and a robe.

Nami's thoughts race faster than her feet, considering and filing possibilities as to the source of the scream. She's already eliminated everyone except Chopper, Usopp, and Brook when she nearly runs into Zoro, who is tromping down the hallway towards the lower bowels of the ship.

"Usopp's on watch," he grumbles in response to her unasked question, and the tension bleeds out of her shoulders.

"I'm gonna kill him," she vows, twisting her hand into a fist and taking Zoro's elbow with her other arm to lead him back on deck. Zoro yawns and follows slowly, mumbling in low undertones about the lack of sleep a person can get on this ship.

Chopper is heading toward the observation room as well, always one to believe Usopp's lies (even if he's not telling lies so much as portraying falsehood) and he crowds around Nami's legs when he sees her.

"Nami! Did you hear that? That was Usopp! Usopp is in trouble!" He chatters, pulling at the bottom of Zoro's coat, still hugging Nami's legs. "And…"

Another scream echoes through the ship, reverberating in the wood of the hull and the halls. Nami slants a gaze at Zoro for his opinion. Usopp screams, a lot, but not usually twice in a row unless the first time wasn't just a shadow or a cold draft. Chopper squeals and rushes out toward the deck calling that he's coming to help Usopp.

Zoro only shrugs. "Luffy was on watch earlier."

Ah, that did widen the range of possibilities.

Pulling Zoro's arm again, Nami leads him through the halls and the kitchen to stand beneath the mast on the grassy deck. Nami is barefoot, and she shivers in her thin, silk nightgown (it's peach, a gift from Robin). The night is getting pretty chilly, but she hadn't realized that tucked beneath her covers, and she's starting to regret trusting the weather to stay warm enough for her to be wearing a nightgown at all . Zoro is yawning, but he's warm, having never changed out of his green robe. Chopper is already halfway up the mast, in Heavy point so he can reach the rungs.

Nami wraps her arms around herself and shivers then turns to Zoro. "You will wait until I am through that door before you even glance up, or else I'll triple your debt." Zoro grunts and eyes her nightgown, acknowledging how the lacy hem flutters in the breeze.

"I'm not the love cook, I don't care."

"Well I do, so look that way," Nami grabs Zoro's shoulders and twists him to face the door to the kitchen, where Robin is stepping out in her own lavender flannels.

Nami grabs onto the first peg and pulls herself up, focusing on the beating she'll be able to give Usopp when she reaches the top and the blankets that they keep piled in the closet that she has curled up in on many a snowy night with a cup of tea that Sanji brought her… The next bite of wind feels especially chilling and Nami shivers, releasing the ladder with one hand to push her dress down.

Chopper's squeal of surprise is not what almost knocks Nami off the ladder. That title goes to the _child's_ yell of surprise.

"It's a talking raccoon!?" Nami forgets to hold on and stares upward at the trap door left open in the bottom of the observation room. The light inside is playing over the last few pegs of the ladder, looking incredibly warm and inviting, there are a few clouds beginning to crowd around the moon, and she can smell the snowstorm creeping towards the ship.

With a sudden realization that she is slipping she latches on tighter and scrambles the last few pegs up into the observation room, getting a face full of frantic Chopper and a split second glance at a short boy in her captain's shirt and several blankets, smiling her captain's smile and laughing her captain's laugh.

And here she thought _she_ was the master thief for being able to steal gold.

 **~1~**

Zoro sighs, rubbing his face with his hand. He really should have gone up there first.

Robin is watching the blurry silhouettes play around where the gold light touches and contemplating what might be happening based on them and the multitude of screams and nonsensical phrases being shouted.

"All three of our most skittish crew mates are up there," she reasons, "it's quite likely nothing too dreadful, only their minds playing tricks."

"Yeah, but Luffy's up there too."

"Ah. That does change things."

Zoro groaned and stepped onto the first rung of the ladder, pulling himself up several at a time, almost like pull-ups.

"Zoro, toss down a blanket, would you?"

He grunts in response to that and finishes the climb, hauling himself up into the observation room.

The moment he puts his feet on the floor someone's flailing hand runs into the light switch and the room descends into darkness. The collective shriek puts another groan in Zoro's throat as he fumbles around for a blanket.

"Ah! Someone's got me!" Chopper cries.

"Just me." Zoro drops the frantic reindeer whose fur he'd mistaken as one of the blankets.

"Zoro!" Usopp yelps and latches his arms around Zoro's chest and Zoro grunts at the extra weight.

"Get off," he says gruffly, rough hands unclenching Usopp's arms from around him. "Someone put on the lights."

He runs his hands out in front of him, feels a soft touch of silky skin.

" _ZORO!"_ Her fist implants itself in his head and he is knocked backward against the wall.

"You're debt is going to _quadruple_ for that you _imbecile,_ you insolent _idiot!"_

"Shut up witch, it's dark," he pushes himself to his feet, feeling forward again, he thought he was on the wall, looking for the light switch, but his fingers catch the fabric of a blanket, so he must be more along the windows where the benches and blankets are. Because he might as well, he tosses it down the hatch to Robin, that's one thing off his list of things to do now. He turns, now putting his hands on the wall.

"Who the heck turned off the lights!" He demands and Usopp squeaks a small apology while Zoro _finally_ stubs his hand against the switch and it flips upward. Light floods into the room, it's a bit of a war zone. Chopper has been trapped beneath some of the weights on the floor, most of the blankets are on the floor, spread over the mess. Outside, the window clouds have started to peel away from the moon and it's doubling the brightness of the room, glinting off the chrome weight handles to make the place sparkle. Nami is red in the face and strangling Usopp while he tries to explain through frantic hand motions that he's innocent.

Nami turns her glare to Zoro, her face folded into a blazing origami figure of an angry tigress, done in bright orange paper. Her fingers unclench from Usopp's necks and he slithers weakly down to the floor as she stalks toward Zoro, putting each bare foot down in between the scattered weights.

"Zoro. I'm sure you recall the _price_ of straying hands." She grounds out as she approaches, fully prepared to demand to be paid in full immediately. Usopp pushes himself off the ground and stares around the room frantically.

"Where did he go?" He whips around, like whoever he's looking for might have snuck behind him.

"I don't knowwwwww" Chopper wails, struggling out from under the weight and flinging a few blankets into the air, as though the subject of his desperation might be hiding beneath one of them.

"Oh yeah, wasn't Luffy up here?" Zoro realizes and Nami stops her advance long enough to allow a confused thoughtful expression to light across her face before saying, resolutely, "No."

In sync, both Chopper and Usopp yell a frantic "Yes!"

"That was not Luffy." Nami spins around with a hiss and a withering glare. "That was some ridiculous devil fruit user that we are going to hunt off of our ship the second we figure out where Luffy decided to take a nap _this_ shift."

"Nuh-uh." Chopper shakes his head viciously and Usopp copies the movement. "He smelled like Luffy! And he had his scar."

 **~1~**

"But that was a kid," Nami stresses, nevertheless picking up a blanket to peek underneath as well. "He was a toddler or something, Luffy is…" She pauses shocked for a moment "How old is Luffy? Nineteen or twenty?"

"Nineteen." Zoro grunts. "There was a kid up here? Little toddler kid?"

"No, Luffy was a kid that was up here. This tall." Usopp holds his hand two or three feet off the floor. "Asked me who I was, all "Hi! I'm Luffy! Who the heck are you?"

"Sounds like Luffy." Zoro snorts, but he frowns and glances out the window. Luffy could have been joking. Totally possible. He could have shrunk himself with third gear, wanted to scare Usopp, it wouldn't be the first time he'd done something of that nature.

But this seemed a little too extravagant for Luffy's everyday antics.

"First step is to find Luffy, can we agree on that?" Nami decides, planting her hands on her hips. "Then we get rid of whatever idiot devil fruit user decided to stow away on our ship and imitate our Captain."

Zoro could tell her that it was most assuredly not another devil fruit user, that there are exactly nine auras aboard this ship. Observation haki isn't his forte, so the vague presences he feels aren't in a clear area so much as near and a particular number. He can distinguish each; there are nine, like there always are on the Sunny.

So no, there is no stow away aboard.

He'll let Nami keep think about that because he recognizes that there are two presences down underneath them. Two presences where he'd left only Robin.

He should probably feel a little bad, he threw his Captain off the mast, but he can't muster the sentiment. Luffy deserves it, causing all this trouble in the middle of the night.

 **~1~**

Robin stands in the cold beneath the mast. In all technicality the Observation room can hold as many as Sunny currently houses, the reason she remains below is because she is certain that an extra body up there would not be helpful at the moment.

She is absolutely positive, because she has both an eye and an ear in the room, and it tells her no more than she already knew down below the room. She can't see anything in the dark, and she hears nothing but the scrambling and yelling of her crew mates. Opening her eyes she banishes the extra appendages, instead staring up at the observation room from her actual vantage point. Staying up there was a waste of energy, and it was growing increasingly hard to focus as the cold intensified. The night had been relatively clear, but when she'd come out on deck she'd noticed gathering clouds, meaning possible snowfall. Carefully, she picks out some of the constellations still visible and counts the amount of times she has to rub her arms each minute in order to retain a tolerable body heat.

The sight of a cloth fluttering out of the Observation Room hatch brings a fragile smile to her face. She's in soft flannels and a robe, but it's no contest when she's competing with the weather of the Grand Line, or the New World for that matter. This is why they keep a large quantity of blankets in the observation room, so that when the temperature took a dive, the crew could whether the shift. In light, lavender flannels, Robin is not weathering the shift.

But the blanket blotting out the sky is her ticket to warmth, and the flood of relief is welcome as she grows a few hands from the mast to capture the material before a wind catches it. Her fingers grasp the edge of the blanket, a fur, she now realizes, and she also comes to understand, that it's not just a blanket.

The weight that tugs the fur from her fingertips is not heavy enough to be Usopp or Nami, but Chopper was up there too, and that estimation feels about right. She calls out a soft summoning of more limbs to snatch both ends of the blanket from the air, keeping poor Chopper cradled inside the blanket. Though each of the Straw hats are sturdy, this is not the time of night to be checking how well the little reindeer can fall, Robin will be scolding Zoro about this later, even if she's sure it was only a mix up given the darkness that enveloped the observation deck when she'd stolen a peek.

She tugs at the momentum of the fur so that it falls more towards her and slings it around the mast a few times to disperse the force of the fall. She can hear giggling inside the fur and she may swing it around a time or two extra for the pleasure of the little reindeer passenger. When her extra limbs dissolve into flower petals and she drops the blanket the last few feet to the ground, it's not Chopper's hat that pokes its way out of the bundle, but Luffy's.

"That was fun!" Her little Captain cheers, giggling happily and fumbling his way out of the blanket. He's small, very short. His Straw hat is falling far over his face but his hand seems to have an easy way of pushing it out of the way. It never occurred to Robin that Luffy may have grown into his hat. She's never seen him up close after gear third and it's actually rather fascinating. To think that rubber would hold such properties as to revert a man back to such a size, he looks like any other child might. With slightly chubby fingers and an innocent glint in his eyes when he spins around to look up at the observation room. He seems not to have noticed Robin's presence yet, but he's happy all the same.

"Ohhh, did I fall from up there?" He wonders aloud and Robin laughs at his voice, which has also been shifted into a higher pitch, akin to that of a child. Luffy immediately switches his attention to Robin, a grin splitting his interested 'ohhh' from its place on his lips. He doesn't seem bothered by the temperature yet, though his cheeks are looking a little rosy, and he is still wrapped in the blanket, so that isn't to be unexpected. Particularly since Luffy has never had a just idea of how to perceive cold.

"Hi! I'm Luffy!" The boy is grinning ear to ear as though he thinks it's just fine that he just got thrown from the top of a fifty-foot tall mast. Robin seals her lips closed at the introduction and pushes her face into a politely amused expression.

"Hello Luffy, I'm Robin." His face lights up and she thinks that maybe her diminutive captain remembers her but instead his eyes are filled with curiosity and wonder.

"Robin is a really pretty name, like a bird. I bet you can fly!" She pins her expression into place, resigning herself to the fact that something has happened and her captain most likely will not be remembering her all that soon.

As to why Luffy is a toddler and doesn't seem to remember his crew member will be addressed shortly, she is sure.

"As a matter of fact, I can fly." She watches his wonder turn to eager awe, his smile growing wider still and his brown eyes glowing from within at the thought.

"Really?" She nods. "Can you take me flying? I can sort of fly, but Ace says it's just falling." He pouts and Robin's eyebrow twitches with the instinct to rise when she hears Ace's name but she refrains from addressing the mentioning, instead opting to shake her head minutely in answer to his question.

"I'm afraid I cannot assist you, I'm not very good at it myself, you see." Luffy's mouth tilts into a disappointed frown and Robin chuckles, putting a hand on his head, subtly feeling for bumps that might have caused his condition under the guise of ruffling his hair.

"How do you fly, Luffy?"

"I'm rubber!" He says, stretching his cheeky smile so it's way out of shape. "I hold onto something tall and stretch out my arms and then I shoot myself waaaaaaaay up!" His cheek snaps back into place when he raises his arms towards the sky. "I could show you! I call it Gum Gum Rocket!"

"Oh no, that's quite alright." She catches one of his arms as he searches for something to grab on to. "You wouldn't want to fall into the ocean and drown."

"The ocean?" Luffy drops his arms and tilts his head like he's confused "Why would I fall in the ocean?" Robin laughs at his innocent befuddlement before pointing over his shoulder and he turns to look where she's pointing, out over the railing of the ship, and he stares vacantly at the waves and the dark horizon for a moment. She's surprised he hadn't heard it before now, the wind is rather harsh, and it's pulling the waves high up against the hull, slapping against the wood like each is knocking on a door.

Everything but the grass beneath their feet screams "you're at sea!", and still Robin watches the exact (belated) moment that Luffy realizes he's on a ship that is sailing on open water.

His vacant look tremors for a moment before every inch of his face begins to _exude_ happiness. His eyes glisten with excitement and his smile is falling off his face because it doesn't even _fit._ The energy of it is dripping into the rest of his body so he starts jumping in place, laughing and cheering.

"I'm on the ocean! I'm sailing!" He bounces over to the railing and leans a little too far over the side for Robin's taste, holding out his hand for salt water to spray on to. He shivers at the chill and laughs loudly, spinning around and darting past Robin's arms on his way to explore the deck.

"Robin!" Usopp yells from the observation room and she divides her attention, letting her eyes follow Luffy's trek across the deck and her ears devote themselves to what her crewmates are yelling about.

"Move, Usopp," Nami cuts in "Robin, is Luffy down there? He skipped out on watch again."

"Yes," Robin answers easily, watching Luffy clamber onto the yellow painted wood and peek around the center mane piece. "He's on the figurehead."

"See, he's fine. We've got some rogue, look-a-like devil fruit user stowaway." Nami growls to Usopp who grumbles an acknowledging sound.

Robin smiles at an amusing thought.

"Luffy, you shouldn't stand up there, a sea king might come and eat you."

"Hah!" Nami barks "We haven't seen any sea kings for weeks because _they're_ scared of _him."_

"Robin, are you feeling okay? Usually your morbid predictions are more factual." Usopp leans a little out of the bottom door and when Robin glances up at him his face is folded into concern.

"What? Robin's sick?" Chopper squeals from behind him and Robin is quick to assure the both of them that she is just fine.

She offers Usopp a smile and shakes her head "I'm just fi-oh!"

"I DON'T WANT TO GET EATEN!" Luffy streaks across the deck and hurtles into Robin's unsuspecting arms, shrieking all the way. She manages to keep the both of them from toppling over into the grass with nothing more than a few extra limbs, and she holds onto the boy that is now wrapped tightly around her torso, multiple times.

"What the… LUFFY?" Usopp screeches, leaning forward and almost tumbling out of the observation room but Nami wrenches him out of the way so that she can look down herself.

Sure enough, in a pool of orangey light played out by the lanterns Franky keeps continually lit on deck, is Robin, only standing thanks to some extra legs and braced arms, being clung to by a blubbering child, his arms and legs looped tightly around her torso in several layers.

There are two options to ponder. Either Luffy is suddenly a toddler, or a much harder to accept alternative, which involves another person eating Luffy's devil fruit.

Thus, Nami spins around, ducks under Zoro's arm, and slams her palm down on the intercom button.

"Everyone on deck!"

 **~1~**

Sanji sits bolt upright in his hammock, steadying the swaying caused by the sudden movement, with a hand on each side of the cloth cocoon. His beloved Nami-san's voice was echoing through the intercom system, begging for his presence at her side.

"Nami-Swan!" He vaults out of the hammock and hits the floorboards in his bare feet, stumbling and hissing curses as the cold seeps into his skin. Still, he composes himself with the thought of Nami's voice, stepping forward and twirling through the dark to the door, "I'm coming, my sweet!"

Or he would be twirling out to answer her call if, from the gloom, there hadn't risen a hulking metal body from his bunk right next to the door that exited into the hallway (the hallway which exited onto the deck where his Nami-san was summoning him). Franky stretches his metal arms over his head and groans as the joints squeal. He grumbles about no time to oil up while Sanji grinds the ball of his foot against the floor.

"Oi, stupid cyborg. Move it." He fishes around in his pockets and groans when he remembers he doesn't keep cigarettes in his pajama pockets.

"Eh?" Franky rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, gears popping into place as he turns to look at Sanji, who is still standing there, sullenly, stubbing his toe against the floor like he wants to kick Franky through a wall.

"Nami-san just called for us, get moving."

"It's too early and I'm too low on cola to listen to you," Franky growls, his fuel warning beeping softly in his ear. Usually, he got a bottle right before breakfast, but they weren't going to have breakfast at, what? He checked the nearest clock and grumbled at the reading; three twenty-two, AM. Sanji sneers in response and Franky makes a snide face, even though he knows Sanji can't see it in the dark, he himself can see Sanji only because of his night vision adjustment mechanism.

"Didn't you hear the call of a damsel in distress?"Sanji fumes. "My sweet darling has requested my presence at her side!" Franky rolls his eyes again, deliberately taking his time with his morning calibrations before making to step toward the door.

"Actually, Sanji-san, Nami-san asked all of us to come to the deck." Brook strolled up behind them, "So we should _all_ be on our way!" His white face is expressionless as always, but Franky can clearly pick out the senior's advice from the inflection in his voice. _Let's all get along, no sense in ruining a day so early!_

"If this is about Usopp I'm going to make him sail behind us in the mini-Merry for the next two days. Woken up twice in one night is too much, a man needs his sleep." Franky rubs his hand over his face, stopping for a moment,

"A man needs to serve his lady!" Sanji wails, trying to sidestep around the cyborg, who has angled himself in the hallway so that Sanji can't possibly get past him.

"So not super…" Franky ignores him, the smaller, yellow hand popping out of his palm and rubbing the sleep from his eyes; he was purposefully stalling. "Unless this is a big thing, I'm going right back to bed."

"It's as good a time as any to start the day!" Brook countered, chipper. "Perhaps you should refuel before you get on deck, you seem rather irritable."

"I'm just tired, Skelly." Franky sighs and presses his nose, his hair morphing into his shark-fin 'do. "But that might be just what I need." Sanji knocked his head against the wall until the exchange was over, legs jittery with the need to kick the two morons out of the way and use the leftover anxiety to sprint to his Nami-swan's side.

So as they passed the kitchen, Franky ducked out of the line and through the door, snatching a bottle of cola off the table (put there last night with the specific purpose of satisfying Franky's cola needs. He tended to get a little cranky when he woke up, so if he had the second night watch it was good to have it there, even if it sometimes got messed with *cough* Usopp *cough*) and tossed it into his stomach. His mechanisms churned for a moment and then the flood of cola rushed through his system and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's more like it!" He stretched his arms over his head and arched his back again. His hair now perfectly coiffed, he burst back into the hallway where Brook was politely waiting for his return, knuckles folded carefully around the curve of his cane.

"Sanji-San went on ahead," he said and Franky shrugged.

"Whatever, Curly-bro gets grouchy in the morning anyway."

They strolled together (actually, Franky sort of sauntered) toward the door to the deck, but the closer they got, the more urgent the situation seemed to become. Of course, this was only based on the frantic yelling on the other side of the door and its gradual increase in volume.

The two exchange a look, Franky's eye flashing mechanically and Brook's eye socket lighting up for a moment as light slanted in so that you could almost see it playing across the back of his skull.

"You two!" Sanji bursts inside from the deck, slamming the door shut behind him "Stay inside. Way inside." He's wincing as the words leave his mouth but he doesn't hesitate to say them.

Now the three of them stare at each other, Franky's mouth open in the start of a retort while Brook clacks his jaw and resets his fingers on his cane, his aura betraying the slightest pinch of hurt while his skull remains emotionless. Sanji's lips are weighted with curses, though his eye is focused, there's no talk of his ladies; his posture betrays his trepidation and uncertainty.

Franky and Brook are unsure how to react to Sanji looking... _nervous._

So they each nod and retreat back to the men's cabin, well out of everyone's way, even though they feel the curiosity and urge to help wrapping around bones and coiling in cogs.

 **~1~**

"I DON'T WANNA GET EATEN" Luffy repeated frantically and Robin rubbed her extra hand along his back soothingly as the child cried into her shoulder. She's marvelling at the fact that though Luffy must be able to feel her two arms trapped beneath his own rubbery ones, he doesn't seem surprised that there is a third arm in the mix of things.

"There is no way that's Luffy," Nami growls, gripping each rung with frustration while Usopp chatters above her about magic spells and out of control devil fruit powers. "Shut up, Usopp!" She barked. Usopp's chatter died down to a low string of nervous muttering.

"It's not that impossible." Zoro said, continuing to climb a few rungs beneath her. "Luffy." Exasperated fondness laced his tone.

"I know; 'Luffy'," she mocks, she's too annoyed to sound fond. "But look at him!" All four of them turn their heads to the deck, looking at the child version of a man they'd seen knock people out simply by wishing it, declare war on the world, and come out of a hard fought battle with bloody knuckles (sometimes it's his blood, often it's not). Now though he is clinging to Robin as though he can't bear to be without contact and some form of protection. As though he actually fears the prospect of a sea king eating him. The punchline being that sea king is one of his favorite pre-dinner snacks.

It was a strange sort of vertigo.

Robin twists around to look up at them, still cradling Luffy, and she gives them a meaningful look, and then nods her head towards Luffy. The message is clear ' _Get down here.'_

Nami swings her foot at Zoro's head and whispers that he had better hurry up, to which Zoro complies, dropping the last few yards to the ground rather than climbing it.

"We haven't seen any sea kings for almost a week." Robin assures the trembling boy wrapped around her torso. She pries carefully at his fingers, which are starting to dig a little too deep for her taste. Still, Luffy refuses to loosen his grip, only pauses in his quiet blubbering.

"Are you sure?" The voice is wobbly and it is obvious that the owner is holding back tears.

"I'm quite positive," Robin affirms, rocking back and forth, almost subconsciously. Nami creeps forward, edging into Luffy's line of sight, which is actually rather limited at the moment, his face buried in Robin's shoulder as it is.

"Hi there," she says once she caught one slightly teary brown eye peeking through Robin's hair at her.

"Hi," Luffy answers dejectedly. He blinks at her for a moment, then rears back with a gasp. "Ah!" He pulls his arms loose from Robin, it takes a moment because they'd gotten tangled (which was unusual, Luffy _hated_ getting tangled). Once they are free he scrubs at his eyes, sniffling, just slightly.

"I'm not a cry baby, I wasn't crying." He denies without anybody accusing him. He ducks his head away from the two women only to find himself staring at Zoro. He stares at the older man's scowl for a moment before his gaze inches upwards. "Wow, Ossan. You're hair is green! That's so cool!"

Zoro grunts what sounds like an affirmation (though he'd call it a denial) while Usopp peeks out from behind him.

"Ah, Longnose-Occhan! I'm sorry I scared you." He grins a smile that says he's actually very happy about it and bows.

"You didn't scare me!" Usopp protests, stepping away from Zoro. "Idiot. Nothing scares the great Usopp-sama!"

"Oh? Then why did you scream?" Luffy tilts his head to the side and makes his confused face, which looks deceptively like a thinking face. Not that they don't recognize it; if this is Luffy, he hasn't changed much since he was younger. Usopp, to his credit, only has to think for a moment before locking into his favorite story genre, fictional-autobiography work.

"It's a greeting between heroes, taught to the valedictorian of every class which graduates from the Inter-blue hero school. I assumed you would know it because you look just the age to be graduating the Junior prep class. And very heroic."

"I'm not a hero!" Luffy shakes his head furiously, the hat dips in over his face and he knocks it back straight. "Heroes share meat, and I'm not sharing, nuh uh!" He puffs out his cheeks and crosses his arms.

"Of course!" Usopp amends while Nami seems simultaneously ready to strangle the boy and cuddle him. "You must have been in the warrior class then, no wonder you didn't understand the traditional greeting!"

"Luffy, these are some of my friends." Robin interrupts. "Zoro, Usopp, Nami, and Chopper," She points to each in turn and Luffy's head swivels between them all, mouthing their names like he's worried he'll forget them. Which he might.

"I don't know any of you guys!" He realizes suddenly, twisting to look out over the railing to the sea. "I don't remember setting sail. Are you guys bad? You don't seem bad but Ace says I'm bad at guessing that stuff and Sabo says I can't trust people just 'cause they seem nice."

"Sounds like good advice," Nami says dryly, remembering the times Luffy had wholeheartedly trusted enemies because they fed him or said something funny. Luffy's definition of 'seems nice' had a lot to be desired. Just look at Zoro.

"It's good of you to listen to their advice." Robin smiles, just a small, petite curve, but Luffy _beams._

"Yeah! My brothers know everything!"

"Brothers? I thought you only had one brother?" Usopp asks before Nami manages to clap a hand over his mouth.

"You idiot!" She hisses "He hasn't told us anything, he might get suspicious!"

But of course, Luffy doesn't.

"Nuh-uh, Ace and Sabo are two people," He holds up two fingers to verify for them. "We all drank sake, it tasted yucky." He makes a face, sticking out his tongue. "But now we're brothers!" Luffy looks like the picture of happiness, face so scrunched with his smile that you can't even see the crescent scar that runs beneath his eye, it's blended with the curve of his eye because there's not enough space left over for all his facial features what with the proud smile he's displaying front and center.

"Um, you don't have to worry, Luffy." Chopper edges out from behind Zoro's leg. "We're good people..."

"Kay then!" Luffy's still beaming, though obviously he's now excited because he feels like he's done what his brothers told him to.

"People can lie about that stuff you know," Nami mumbles to herself, quiet so Luffy can't hear. Pointing it out to him wouldn't do any good; he wouldn't listen, and if he did it wouldn't be good for their current predicament. It wasn't like they could tell the seven year old that he was wanted for a large sum of money and was actually nineteen and was their captain.

"Hey, can I go back home now? Ace and Sabo are going to be worried, and last time I left without telling them they only let me eat the tail."

"The tail?" Chopper and Usopp echo.

"Of the crocodile," Luffy pouts "the head is the best part, but Ace always gets that."

 _Ah, he's talking about food._

"We can't bring you home right now, Luffy," Nami apologizes, kneeling down next to him. He looks at her expectantly and she bites her lip, trying to come up with an acceptable excuse. Then she smiles. "We're on an adventure."

"An adventure!" Luffy cries, eyes gleaming "When I grow up I'm gonna go on lots of adventures, and I'm going to have really great nakama and we're all gonna be the greatest pirates on the ocean! I get to be the captain. Ace and Sabo said they're gonna have their own crews and I should join one of them, but I'm gonna convince them to join me!" He crosses his arms and looks to the side, muttering about stupid older brothers. Then he brightens, puffs out his chest. "I'm going to be the _Pirate King."_

Usopp ducks away, hugging Chopper. "He has such confidence in us!" They both sob quietly.

"But you can come with us now!" Nami urges "We can send a letter to your brothers to tell them where you are. We're pirates, just like you want to be."

"Really! You guys are pirates?" He looks up at Zoro with more than a hint of adoration. But then his smile droops and he looks down at his feet. "But... Ace smiles more when it's all three of us..." He darts a glance around deck and his gaze is undoubtedly longing. "I can't stay, but your ship is really super cool!" He brightens. "When I turn seventeen I'll look for you guys!" He's moving before any of them understand what he's talking about, he spins around and climbs up the stairs, trying to get to the highest point he can reach easily. When he does he cranes his neck and stares at the top of the mast, above the observation room, where there flies a banner of black cloth, a skull and cross-bones emblazoned across it. "I'll draw your jolly roger when I get home so I won't forget..." He freezes as he finally notices the straw hat perched upon the skull's head.

Luffy's hands creep behind him, pulling the straw hat from around his neck. He holds it up to compare it to the flag. His eyes narrow and he closes one, trying to see both clearly at the same time. He turns back to them looking angry, and for a second Nami thinks he's figured out something important.

"You guys stole my jolly roger!"

Or, maybe not.

"That's what my flag is gonna be! You can't have it!" He fumes. "A flag is a pirate's pride! You can't take mine before I even have a chance to fly it!" His eyes widen, hands grasping the brim of his hat with white fingers, nearly ripping the poor thing. "Do you want my hat? Is that why I'm here instead of home? You can't have it, it's my promise! Shanks gave it to me! It means I'm going to be king of the pirates!" His anger has shifted into frantic yelling, his eyes dart between them all, uncertain as to who to trust and who to blame.

"I don't get it!" He cries, his anger melting into despair in an instant. He's spiralling out of control and none of them can get a word in edgewise, he's not listening, not at all. "You said you were nice! You all feel good!" He squeezes his eyes shut, yelling. "Why are you all bad?"

It was all a horrible misunderstanding, but each of them felt the pain in their chest, a child was yelling at them, a child who they knew would grow to become a man they all respected and owed their lives to. And he was now condemning them, convinced that they were bad people for trying to steal his dream.

It hurt. For a group of people who was formed to accomplish his dream (and theirs too), hearing him accuse them of stealing, it hurt.

"NAMI-SANNNNN! HOW MAY I SERVE YOU?"

The door flies open, right beneath where Luffy is standing (the deck above the kitchen entrance) revealing a pajama clad Sanji, leaping forward with his arms in the air. "I'd awake to your call at any time! You must only whisper my name in your angelic voice and I will hear it and be summoned from even the greatest of distances. For nothing can separate true lovers!"

"Sanji-kun! Now is not the time!" Nami hisses, eyes only for Luffy, who's face is slowly morphing into one of his confused faces, it's the one he makes when he exhausts himself after a battle and doesn't seem to grasp the reason that he's falling over.

He mouths something, probably meant to say it, but there's no sound, and he realizes this, brow furrowing and he says it again, loud, so they hear this time.

"Ace… Saaaaboooo…" He moans, eyes instantly filling with tears "I'm scared!" Chopper whimpers and takes a few steps forward, hooves twitching with the urge to go help the vulnerable figure standing on the upper deck. Robin frowns but still holds him back from running to him, though clearly she has the same urge.

Sanji's eye widens as he turns and looks up at the child, succumbing first to sniffles then dipping into quiet sobs, still the confused crinkle on his face. The moment he realizes who the child is, is marked with an incredibly clear shift in his face, from confusion to resignation and surprise simultaneously, and then to annoyance.

"Stop that, crap captain." He snaps "I don't know what's going on, but you're upsetting Nami-san!"

He'd flipped a switch, the quiet sob turns to an all out bawl and Sanji jerks backward like he's been struck as he realizes that something is really not as it should be.

"Sanji-kun!" Nami screams, pushing him aside as she rushes up towards Luffy, desperate to calm the crying child. Chopper was right next to her, equally loud.

"Luffy, don't cry! We didn't mean to upset you!" He wails, blue nose obscured by the snot that often came with his hysterical tears.

Zoro had stepped away from the group, his hand wrapped around the hilt of one of his swords, eye closed, mouth set in a grim line, reaching around the ship with his observation haki. Usopp was mumbling to himself, eyes trained on the wood right beneath Luffy's feet.

"Luffy, don't get so upset, we can explain things to you if you'll just listen!" Nami pleads with the boy but there's no change. Nami's brain makes a sudden connection and she hisses to herself, then yells at Sanji. "Sanji-kun, go back inside, tell Brook and Franky to stay inside. They'll scare him." Sanji ducks back into the cabins with a sense of purpose but also with the air of flight. Luffy is still seemingly inconsolable, it's struck the chord of desperation in Nami, the part of her where she wants so horribly much to make him stop crying that she'll start doing things that'd probably make him cry more. A part of her whispers, he's just a kid, be calm and kind, while the other part yells, it's Luffy, just beat him over the head like you always do!

"Don't be stupid, we don't want your hat, you can have your jolly roger." Nami swears, but he keeps going, ignoring her. "Whatever is wrong we can fix, stop crying!" Surprisingly, he does, sort of.

It is the suddenness of it that leaves worry coiling in Nami's stomach, how his figure completely stills and his breath immediately turns even. She watches as a shiver runs up his spine, she can tell because his body ripples with it, and there is the slightest gasp as the small boy falls to his knees, silent.

"Luffy?" Nami probes after a moment of silence. "Could you come down?" No answer but then a shuddering breath, an abrupt snap, almost the crack of a whip, and Luffy cries out and lurches to the side, suddenly going limp and crumpling into a discombobulated huddle on the floor.

There's a beat of silence, everybody hoping that he'll sit up and whine about how he'd landed on his hat and it was flattened now, or start crying for his brothers.

But he doesn't.

With a short gasp Nami scrambles up onto the same level of deck, scooping the boy up to cradle him against her chest, her soft spot for children aching and overriding the exasperation she felt for her captain for doing… whatever caused this.

She runs light fingers over his arms and face, looking for bumps and scrapes, and then she shakes him gently. He mumbles gibberish and shifts away from her hand, asleep.

She sighs with relief, leaning back over the lower level.

"He's just asleep." Chopper wilts with relief and Zoro grunts. She frowns looking down at the little boy in her arms. "He looks smaller though, and something's different… He looks strange."

"Why not we discuss this inside?" Robin interrupts. "it's growing colder, and we should _all_ be present to hear this, no?"

"You're right, Robin," Nami quickly agrees, slowly clambering down. "Somebody tell Sanji-kun to put on coffee, looks like our day's starting a bit earlier then usual."

 **~1~**


	3. Excuses Excuses

Sanji slid a large platter of breakfast rolls into the center of the table, setting the coffee pot on a coaster near Robin. Brook sipped at his Earl Gray and tried to pay attention to the debate raging across the table.

"There's no one else on this ship." Zoro ground out yet again, one hand clenched like a vise around one of his swords while he held an empty mug in the other and waved it in Robin's general direction as a gesture requesting her to pour him a cup of coffee.

"Someone has to be!" Nami insisted, she would have been beating some sense into him had her arms not been wrapped loosely around the small body in her lap. Chopper was running a simple check up on Luffy to try and form a diagnosis for whatever might have caused Luffy's shrinkage and amnesia. "This kind of thing doesn't just happen!" She gestured randomly at the boy as he squirmed in his sleep, mumbling faintly in gibberish and half sentences. "It's got 'devil fruit' written all over it!"

"We're in the New World. He probably ate something he shouldn't have." Zoro barked and Sanji stopped dead in the process of setting the first actual plates of breakfast on the table.

"Are you accusing my cooking, mosshead?" He growled, leaning across the table to get in his face and Usopp scooted a little further away from the two.

"No, but that's just as likely to have poisoned him as some weird animal or plant." Zoro countered, nonchalant, even as Sanji reached forward and buried his fingers in the man's green hair.

"Yeah! This weird plant right here must have done it!" Sanji tugged at the hair in his hand and Zoro lurched forward to clash foreheads with the other man, grabbing his own handful of blond.

"Stop that!" Usopp yelled frantically "You shouldn't make so much noise, what if he wakes up? He's gonna be mad at us…"

"Then you stop yelling!" Nami shrieked at him, "And you two, stop fighting! Now is not the time!"

"Woah!" Franky stood up and held out his metal hands to try and calm everyone down, not that a large, red, blue and pink metal cyborg wearing a speedo was all that good at calming people down. Though he does command attention. Sanji had already begun pulling out of the fight when Nami had asked him to and Zoro released his own grip on the cook's hair with a sigh while Usopp leaned back in his chair with a worried sigh. "Don'cha think we're getting too worked up here? It's probably temporary."

"He's a… what? Five? Six?" Usopp guessed leaning over to look at the child again "Six year old kid with a bounty of five hundred million on the most dangerous ocean in the world." Usopp said "He's on a pirate ship and he sinks like a rock and he's _Luffy._ "

"He won't last a day." Sanji nodded grimly while Franky nudged his shoulder, laughing about lack of faith.

"And what if it's _not_ temporary?" Nami asked Franky "What if we have to do something to fix it?"

"Then we do it," Franky shrugged "but freaking out like this isn't doing any good."

"Franky is right." All eyes turned to Robin, who had her fingers wrapped around her mug of coffee and her eyes closed serenely. She opened them slowly. "I double checked, no one is on this ship. Unless it was one of us, no one did anything to cause this to happen, after all we haven't docked in days. A serum with that kind of incubation period is incredibly rare and I happen to know there are none with these sorts of effects." She smiled as Usopp accused her of having morbid habits and waited as Nami quieted him with a kick to the shin. "This is a puzzle like any other. We'll solve it one piece at a time."

There was a temporary silence as that philosophy settled over the others. They'd done more impossible things before, and not even the Gods could keep Luffy from becoming the Pirate King. The hardest part of the whole event was sure to be corraling a wanted, hyper six year old.

Usopp chuckled suddenly "At least he's not in diapers or something _, then_ we'd have a problem." Franky guffawed and reached over to slap him on his back while Nami blushed furiously and Zoro nearly choked on his own coffee.

"We already have a problem." Chopper said anxiously, finally pulling away from Luffy and taking his stethoscope out of his ears. The mood immediately dropped into negativity, as though plunged into ice water as all attention was focused on the little doctor.

"Is something wrong with him?" Nami asked, clutching the boy a little tighter before realizing that that helped absolutely nothing.

"He looks perfectly healthy." Robin mused but Chopper shook his head.

"His pulse is way too fast, and his blood pressure is really high."

"How bad is that?"

"Bad. There's a lot of stress on his heart. If he wasn't rubber… I'd predict either burst blood vessels or… cardiac arrest."

A beat of silence.

"W-well he is rub-bber so let's not worry about that." Usopp stuttered as Nami tried to comfort herself by untangling Luffy's hair. She glanced down to remind herself he was still right there, whining in his sleep about robot steak and 'grsufi' and then, as her eyes ran casually over his face she noticed what was missing. She gasped and Chopper was there peering next to her in an instant.

"What? What happened?"

"His scar, his scar is missing!"

"The stitched one, under his eye?" Robin asked, curious, while Usopp stood up to lean over the table and look himself.

"That's what looked wrong to me before." Nami realized and Chopper stepped away at the false alarm.

"Yeah, I'm not sure where it went." Chopper dropped his stethoscope into his bag "Where they went actually. Rubber doesn't scar easily, but those he has contracted… poof. Gone." He shrugged the bag onto his shoulders. That's another thing; aside from his blood pressure and heart rate there's nothing wrong. His scars are gone, his systems are all functioning normally, everything is just… smaller."

"And his memory." Sanji reminded him, setting a platter of bacon on the table. "Speaking of which, let's see what's up with that." He took a strip of meat between two fingers and dangled it over Luffy's nose.

The boy twitched, then licked his lips. Nami couldn't help but roll her eyes as he bolted upright and tore the strip out of Sanji's hand, humming with content as the taste settled over his tongue.

"Wow… You make really good bacon…" He stared up at Sanji, then his eyes darted back to the bacon. "Mmm…" He licked his lips and reached for a second piece before stopping. "Can I eat it?"

"You aren't mad?" Usopp blurted and Luffy tilted his head.

"No. I just want the bacon."

"uh… Yeah. Go ahead, it's for you."

"Really? All that? So cool!" He beamed and snatched up a handful as though they were chips. "Foh, who awe 'ou guys?" he asked, absently, through a mouth full of bacon.

Nami wasn't sure if she should be relieved or worried that his memory was apparently wiped clean again and she wasn't the only one with mixed feelings. On one hand it was a second chance to earn his trust, on the other, the problem seemed to be getting worse. Chopper looked ready to faint of relief that the boy wasn't dying of a heart attack so she probably shouldn't complain.

"Oh, Luffy-san, do you really not remember us? We're your…"

"We're pirates!" Nami shouts over Brook, but Luffy doesn't seem to be paying attention to what's actually being said, his eyes trained on Brook. He hesitates.

"Are you a skeleton?"

"Yes."

"Are you dead?"

"Yes."

"That's creepy. How?"

"Ah, well, I ate a Devil Fruit!"

"What's that?"

"You don't know what a Devil Fruit is?" Usopp yelped as Nami kicked him in the shin but he plowed on "I mean, it's a _Devil Fruit."_ He stressed.

"Nope! Does it taste good?"

" _No."_ Came the vehement reply of the other three devil fruit users.

"It's a fruit that gives you powers but takes away your ability to swim." Robin explains, steam from her coffee coiling in her face. "Brook ate one that gave him two chances at life."

"Really? That's cool! But still creepy. You're scary!" The boy grinned at his musician, who then slumped down in his seat, bones clicking slightly as his joints shifted. He'd been told he was scary, but he never thought he'd hear it from Luffy-san. He wondered why he wasn't screaming, actually, he'd been shocked the first time they made eye contact! (Not that he was capable of making eye contact, for obvious reasons.) "I wouldn't want to eat one. I'm learning how to swim!" he sticks out his tongue while Robin raises her eyebrow and Sanji exchanges quizzical looks with Usopp, who's gone wide eyed. "Besides, I only like good food. I wouldn't eat something yucky." Sanji snorts at that.

"You'd eat charred squid drenched in hot sauce and call it gourmet." He thought for a moment, absently puffing out a smoke ring. "You did once, now that I think about it. Not that I'd ever burn squid, or put hot sauce on it for that matter." He glared at Usopp who whistled and looked in the other direction, rubbing his hands on his bare arms, which had suddenly been covered with goose bumps.

"Nah, Makino makes food for me, so I know she'd never feed me something that tasted bad." He sucked on his greasy fingertips as the last of the bacon disappeared. "Mmm, thanks! You guys are nice!" He blinked, tilted his head as his eyes darted around the room again. "Who are you guys again?"

"Pirates." Nami cut in before anyone else could. "No worries, we're friendly."

"We thought you might like to go on an adventure with us." Robin interjected smoothly. "Shanks told us you are eager to set sail."

"Shanks?"

The question was simple, completely innocent, but it threw a pick axe between the eyes of every straw hat except Brook and Franky, neither of which had ever before heard the name. The few times Luffy had mentioned Shanks to them it had been entirely clear that he idolized the man in every sense of the word. Just a half hour ago he'd tearfully proclaimed that Shanks had given him Hat, and that if it was stolen from him it would break the promise that left him to become pirate king. If that didn't say something about Luffy's immense admiration of the man, then nothing did.

It also left the straw hats with almost no knowledge at all, seeing as how his memories of Shanks were about the only part of Luffy's childhood any of them knew even remotely.

"Uh… Yeah!" Usopp improvised, waving his hands. "Shanks. He's a fisherman, he said he lived on the same island as you for years before he set out to…" He paused, fumbling for something interesting enough to entertain Luffy.

"Fish in the other seas." Sanji filled in, rolling his cigarette between his fingers. "He wanted some variety. We ran into him in North Blue."

"So we mentioned we needed a cabin boy, someone who could brave the Grand Line!" Usopp picked up again, Luffy gasped.

"The Grand Line?" Usopp nodded profoundly, leaning forward to poke Luffy's nose with his own. The boy giggled and rubbed the spot where they'd touched.

"You know who he suggested?" Luffy shook his head, wonder shining in his eyes, breathless with amazement. "You! 'Monkey D. Luffy, in East Blue!' He told us; 'Brave and strong and loyal to boot! He wants to be a pirate, and he'd make the best cabin boy you ever did see!'" Usopp fumbled suddenly , realizing that Luffy would never want to be just a cabin boy. "'Until he's old enough to lead his own crew as Captain, that is!' So we sailed straight for East Blue to pick you up!"

"Really?" He gasped "You want me to be your cabin boy? And go on adventures? As a pirate?"

"Yes we do." Usopp winked at his crewmates and Zoro rolled his eye while Robin tittered into her hand.

"I really want to be a pirate," Luffy clenched his hands into fists and bounced up and down in place before biting his lip and forcefully calming himself down. "But you guys should take me home." The boy wilted and jaws dropped. He looked beyond dejected, bordering on depressed, his eyes dark and maybe a little watery as Sanji choked on smoke and Nami dropped her fork while Chopper clutched at his bag of medical supplies.

"Why's that?" Robin prodded and Luffy pouted.

"You guys are all really nice, but my Grandpa is a super strong, really mean, marine! He doesn't want me to be a pirate, he's training me to be a marine." Luffy made a face "The uniform is itchy." Chopper gagged while Usopp turned pale at the image of Luffy in a marine uniform. "But he'll get super mad at you for taking me, he'll arrest you and then you won't be able to be pirates anymore!" Luffy threw his hands on the air and stuck his forehead up against Usopp's, eyes gleaming with sincerity and maybe a hint of desperation. "So you get you have to bring me home? You don't want to meet Ji-Ji. Especially if he likes you, then he gives you a Fist of Love. He'll come after you." He warned.

"You don't have to worry about that." Zoro took a swig from his coffee mug, didn't bother sitting up from his trademarked I-Don't-Give-A-Crap-About-Life-Gimme-Booze lounge. "We're hardier then we look. We've been through a lot to take our Captain where he wants to go." Luffy's interest snagged on the swordsman and he twisted away from Usopp to look Zoro straight in the eye. Nami made frantic cut-off motions behind Luffy's head, and when that didn't work, pointed at Zoro and then rubbed her fingers together in the universal symbol for 'you owe me'. Usopp stuttered a few times, trying to catch Luffy's attention again, recognizing that the swordsman was carelessly entering dangerous territory.

"Aren't you the captain?" he asked suddenly and Sanji sputtered, then guffawed whilst Zoro had begun chuckling but stopped on account of being offended by the cook's adamant reaction.

"No." he answered shortly.

"Definitely no!" Sanji slapped his knee "You think I'd ever follow this Moss-head?"

"Well I dunno! I just met you guys!" Luffy defended, stomping his foot as his face shifted into frustrated embarrassment and gained a red tinge. "Who is your captain then?" He glared around the table with his cheeks puffed out, and when no one answered immediately he stomped his foot again, the too-large sandal slipping off. "Well then where are they! That's not nice, to bring someone aboard and then not say hello!"

"He's preoccupied at this time." Robin invented as she slid a glass of juice (which she'd discreetly transferred to the table using extra limbs) towards the boy in an effort to appease him.

"Yes!" Nami supported "Very urgent business on another island, had to go settle it himself."

"That's even worse! The captain's job is to protect everyone, so you guys took me and Ji Ji is gonna come get you and your captain isn't here to help!" He breathed in sharply "Ah! He's gonna be all mad that I got you guys into trouble!" By this time his arms were flailing and his eyes were blown wide, Zoro sighed, reached out a hand and caught Luffy's wrist, pulling the boy to face him.

"He won't be mad, because we won't get in trouble cause I just told you, we're strong."

"Strong as Ji Ji?" Luffy asked dubiously.

"Gotta be." Zoro released his wrist and leaned fully back again. "Can't reach the One Piece without that kind of strength."

Luffy's jaw dropped, his voice came out in a whisper.

"The One Piece? We're going to find the One Piece?" Nods all around the table and Usopp grinned, Luffy was theirs for sure now.

"And you want me to come?" More nods, and Luffy nodded along, quick, jerky, smiling nods as he clenched his teeth in excitement. "I'm coming! I'll find treasure to pay off my treasure tab and I won't ever have to get hit by Ji-Ji again and I'll have adventures and I'll have lot's and lot's of friends!"

Robin looked bemused as she exchanged glances with Nami, who had lost her temporary position as chair in the process of the last few minutes, as at one point or another, Luffy had clambered onto the table. Brook sang out his cheerful laugh and Sanji slunk off to get the other platters of breakfast he'd prepared. Looking at Luffy, standing on the table and already reaching for the food on the plates Sanji had picked up, it was easy to imagine that maybe they could make this work.

 **~2~**

"Like this?" Luffy pushes the mop back and forth along the wooden floor of the second level deck. One of the strings gets caught between the boards and he stumbles backward, almost tripping on the bucket set behind him.

"Almost." Usopp catches the mop handle so the boy has something upright to hang onto, he clings. "Just move the mop, don't move with it."

"Right," Luffy plants his feet, swinging the mop haphazardly, almost poking out Usopp's eye with the round tipped handle.

"Good job!" He ducks away from the flailing mop handle and stands back against the railing with Nami, watching Luffy swab the deck (spreading more dirty suds than clean ones).

Keeping Luffy occupied for the last few hours had not been an easy task, but by filling his time with increasingly odd jobs, they'd managed. Despite the whole morning's fiasco occurring at three o'clock in the morning Luffy hadn't been tired in the slightest; luckily, the Straw hats were used to all nighters.

Usopp had been the one tasked with watching out for the diminutive captain, he'd been the obvious choice because of the impression that Luffy had taken of him as an amazing pirate mentor, the whole relationship bordered on imprinting. Most of the others kept their distance, occupied with suddenly pressing tasks, Robin and Chopper researching, Franky building Luffy-proof railings for the deck (attachable and detachable since this whole thing would _not_ be permanent) Brook had warily vanished into the belly of the ship, anxious that he might scare Luffy by mistake, even though the boy had been nothing but curious and enthusiastic. Zoro was stationed on watch, and the sounds of increasingly heavy weights being lifted at an ever-quickening pace made it clear that he'd prefer if the others steered clear.

Sanji was making second breakfast and early lunch, grumbling about how everyone's internal clock was going to be out of whack for days because of the extra early meal.

"It's a bit surreal isn't it?" Nami muses, fingering the tattered brim of the straw hat. Luffy, without any memories of Shanks, had commented that the hat was cool but wasn't his when Nami had offered it to him. "Yesterday he was excited because we were going to an island with a shaky needle, now he's excited because he's learning how to mop."

"Hey now, don't argue with easy to please," Usopp joked, shooting Luffy a thumbs up when the boy turned to see if he was watching.

"I'm not arguing, it's just strange. That little kid over there beat up two shichibukai and had fun doing it, now he has no idea what a gum gum pistol is! Not to mention, who just ups and shrinks out of the blue?"

"We have such a volatile captain," Usopp snickers and reaches out for the hat, Nami hands it to him. "But really, he's not _that_ different. Yeah, he's in Chopper's clothes, and yeah he doesn't run around yelling he's going to be the pirate king, and yeah he's forgotten he even has a hat…" He glanced up from playing with the red hat ribbon, Nami had her eyebrows raised. "OK, so he's different. But really, watch this." He hands the hat back to Nami and watches Luffy fondly for a second. He's given up on actually mopping and is instead practicing mock sword exercises with his mop handle acting as a practice sword. "Hey Luffy!" The boy freezes, the mop handle brandished in front of him, probably imbedded in some imaginary enemies gut; the guilt on his face looks crushing, and it makes Nami laugh at how little it takes to upset the child when her captain usually wouldn't bat an eye at the situation. "Working hard over there?" Usopp smirks and the boy let's a wobbly smile spreads over his lips, he lowers the mop handle and actually moves it so it's a little behind his back, as though trying to hide the evidence.

"Um, yeah! I'm mopping really hard, not pretending to fight enemy pirates at all…" He purses his lips and ducks his head.

"Oh, don't be mean," Nami lightly slaps Usopp's arm and then grins at Luffy "you're doing a great job, Luffy," she assures him and Luffy beams nervously. "The deck is sparkling!"

Neither of them miss the relief that passes behind Luffy's eyes before he brings the mop out again and pushes it back and forth a few times, clearly for show.

"See not that different," Usopp leans back over the railing, stretching his back out till he feels it pop.

"You're fooling yourself," Nami argues "He might have some similarities, but you and I both know that he's an extremely different person, just maybe not on a fundamental level. Luffy can't lie," she holds up a finger "That's rule number one in the How To Live With Luffy handbook. Speaking of which; rule two, he gets bored fast, what do you suggest for when he stops mopping? Or pretending to mop." Luffy may have maintained the charade for a few moments after his brush with discovery, but he's switched back into mock fighting now, but they leave him to it.

"We'll give him a new job, watering the grass or something," Usopp shrugs. Not all of the jobs they tried were good fits, like Luffy helping Sanji wash dishes, or Luffy watering his pop greens (which were slightly carnivorous, but that wasn't a problem for him, only for a small boy who was just the right size to be an appetizer), or, for a short time, Luffy doodling maps of his home village with Nami's help. Nami flicks Usopp's nose irritably.

"He'll make the whole deck a marsh! You can have him do that but only if you take the heat when Franky finds out." She crosses her arms and he gapes at her.

"What! But you're the one with a body guard!" Honestly, Nami never took advantage of her gender… Ok, lie. But she only used certain advantages, she could do almost anything she wanted

and she'd never have to worry about it because of Sanji. Nami ignored him, turning back to their charge and tapping her chin thoughtfully.

"He's a kid right, what about a game?"

"It's not like he would sit still long enough to play cards or something. Oh! How about hide and seek?" Usopp smirks until Nami brings a fist down on his head.

"NO. Don't let him out of your sight!"

Luffy's begun to hum a happy song, that sounds a bit like a morphed version of Bink's sake (morphed as in there's a number of notes in all the wrong spots) and is happily swinging the mop around the deck, shifting into a dance that carries him over the slippery boards as he stumbles about with his clumsy partener. He's content, until he's interrupted. Pain pierces directly beneath his eye, he feels the blood slide over his skin and he shouts with the abrupt charge that shocks through him. He drops the mop, his hands flying to his eye, the skin there is dry, no blood, but it stings, burns, the skin is marred, smoother than it should be.

Usopp and Nami both straighten, snapping towards the cry and in just a second Usopp is crossing towards his captain.

"You alright?" He asks and when Luffy shakes his head Nami is across the deck in a few steps, Usopp kneeling down and turning the boy to look at him. "What happened?"

"My eye hurts," Luffy sniffles and the tears begin to bud in the eye they can see.

"Let me see," Nami kneels down to his height and pulls his hands away from his face. She gasps.

While Luffy sniffles she traces a feather-light fingertip along the curve of the scar beneath his right eye, the skin is shiny and new, bright red with two fresh lines where stitching has recently been removed.

"How did you get this?" She breathes tracing it again while Usopp yelps at the sight of the new wound. Luffy shakes his head and Nami pulls her hand back.

"I don't know, it hurrrrttsssssss…" His eyes well up full and Nami hastily swipes her thumbs across the pooling tears.

"Don't do that! The salt will sting if it gets on there," She scolds and Luffy begins to chew on his lower lip, shaking, as though holding his breath will make the tears stop flowing. Nami sighs and looks up at Usopp, questions flitting across the space between the two. He cringes and waves his hands, she closes her eyes and shakes her head, turning back to Luffy; she should have known better then to turn to Usopp for answers.

"We should put a band aid on that, come 'ere." Luffy held up his arms and she hoisted him up from under his armpits. He wraps his legs around her torso and settles his head on her shoulder. He sniffles again before pulling away, looking at his hand.

"Luffy?" Nami prompts, he ignores her, instead reaching out and pulling on his hand as if his wrist might come out of its joint.

It _stretched._

 **~2~**

Tears, salt water, blood. He's wet, wet with it all, clutching at the fabric of the shirt, wringing it out with his fists even as it's soaked with the next wave. The noise, just his screams and Shanks' reassurances (lies) and waves. The waves are deafening. He goes under, blood mingles with salt, it's coppery salty water, he spits it out.

"It's alright Anchor, it's just an arm."

It's not, it's _Shank's_ arm, it's special and important and it's gone because of _him._

Wave, over his head, Shanks curses into his hair as he's pressed close and blood drips onto his ear as he's clutched closer still. water, silence, the swirl of the water around him, he surfaces.

It's gone.

In an instant it's gone, all of it. _Everything._

He screams.

No more water, no more blood. He can't feel the waves, can't hear Shanks, he's not wet, his arms are wrapped tightly around someone else, not clenched in fabric. He's being shaken, carried, someone is running, bouncing him gently.

It's all gone, except for the tears and reassurances.

"Calm down, it's just a scar."

"We're taking you to Chopper, he'll make it stop stinging."

"Don't worry, rubber is cool."

"Don't cry Luffy! I've got this nice cream that'll help…"

"Please, Luffy, that _hurts."_

His eyes fly open, it's gone, it's absolutely all gone. Shanks, Shanks… Shanksshanksshanksshanks! He cries, he let's go, his body snaps back together and he falls, onto wood, onto a floor. It's a tumble and a crawl and a leap, the step back, into her leg. She's tall, and not Makino, not Shanks. Who? Whowhowho?

"Hey, nothing's wrong." He spins, the man is towering, his arms reaching, grabbing! Everything's wrong. Where's Shanks. Where's he? He stumbles and falls to the side, something catches him, his size. He yells as the fur wraps around him, it's soft, it's not Shanks.

"NO!" He screams and he pushes away, the fur goes away, he stumbles, he crawls. The wall gives, a tumble, into a new place. Long. A hall. Not the ocean, where's the sea monster? Where's Shanks? Did he die? Is his arm really gone?

"Luffy! Hey, hey, look at me, come 'ere." The hand is around his, grasping, he spins and spits.

"Let go of me! Shanks! Shanks, where…?" He slides his hand free, the grip had gone lax, he runs.

 **~2~**

"No! Nononono!" Usopp chatters and stumbles down the hall, reaching for the boy as he careens down the hall. He's screaming gibberish and is obviously confused and scared. This isn't Luffy, not at all.

"What the heck!" Sanji yells as the kitchen door blows open with the force of Luffy's push against it. "Luffy?" Usopp pushes in after him, Chopper ducking under the man's legs.

"Catch him!"

"Catch him?" Sanji leaps over the counter and lunges for the boy, wrapping his arms around the boy, who immediately begins to flail, screaming bloody murder.

"No! No, Shanks! Wherewhere, where?!" Sanji pins his arms and hugs him close in a tight hold, even as he digs his feet into his stomach looking for purchase.

"Luffy, Luffy, look at me." He demands and is surprised when the boy complies, he strains his neck, bending almost in half to look up and Sanji bites through his cigarette. He sees the picture of panic, eyes blown wide, tears turning his cheeks shiny. Little choked sobs are making the boy gasp and buck, even as he whips his head around, accidently getting snot all over Sanji's suit.

"Sanji-kun, you got him!" Nami blows in like a frantic gale and Luffy whimpers, struggling as they all gather close.

"Go away! Let me go! Where…?!" His eyes shift frantically from person to person, stalling on Nami and then spinning back around to stare at Usopp.

"Luffy, you're upsetting Nami-san. Stop yelling." Sanji commands and again to his surprise the boy seals his lips shut, the sobs buried into a hitch of his breath deep within his chest. "Good, now I'm going to set you down, stay _still."_ He bends down and sets Luffy on his feet where he wobbles for a moment before bolting to the left. Usopp snatches him up.

"Wha-oah!" He fumbles as the boy flails again, crying loudly again. "Geez, you're strong already!"

"NOOOoooo! I don't want to be here! Stupid bandits!"

"Bandits?" Chopper yelps as Luffy's leg stretches in a kick a little too close for comfort. "We're not bandits!"

"Stop lying, you stole me! Give me back, I want to go hoooooomme!" Luffy keens and Sanji throws his hands over his ears.

"Luffy! Listen to me! We didn't take you! You're safe here! _Safe."_ Nami ducks into the chaos and catches Luffy's hand, completely capturing it within her own.

"No _way,"_ Luffy whips his head to face her, his voice wobbles with fear and emotion and contempt. "Shanks would never let me go, you hurt him, worse than I did. You _must_ have." The words sound more desperate and reproachful than actually accusing.

"Ah, no! We're good friends of Shanks!" Usopp spouts and Luffy howls.

"No! You're not! If you were you'd be with him and not with _me."_

Luffy pulls free and rolls over the floor, scuttling to a corner where he curls up, hugging his knees. He moans and rubs his face over his kneecaps, blubbering gibberish.

"Luffy…" Nami moves forward but Sanji pulls her back.

"Nami-san I think we should leave him be for now. We're only causing more anguish by crowding him."

She nods and steps back again, Chopper reaching forward and hugging her leg.

Sanji looks at the three of them, Nami close to tears, Usopp lingering nervously to the side and fingering the straps of his suspenders, Chopper sniffling at Nami's feet, all six eyes trained on Luffy, who's gone silent, but remains a shivering ball of misery, back shaking with contained cries.

Outside in the hall a long note draws itself from the strings of a violin, turning sharp at the very end of its life before falling into the gentle rise and fall of a melody.

He steps around the counter, back into the kitchen, picks up the plate of sandwiches he'd put together for lunch and sets on the table, nudging Usopp as he passes before taking Nami's arms and leading her to a chair. The sniper flinches and takes a seat himself, robotically picking up a sandwich and putting it in his mouth, chewing slowly as he stares into space, slow and thoughtful. Nami mumbles a soft thank you and drops into the chair like she's going to bed, tired and worn out by a day that started at three o'clock and is only just getting to it's climax, or maybe it will last longer still. Who knows anymore.

Sanji lights a new cigarette before picking up his chopping knife and putting a new carrot on the cutting board, the nicotine stills the shake in his hands. He looks down at the carrot, switches it with a tomato, the first slice sends red juice spurting across the counter.

What is probably fifteen minutes is comparable to an hour, to people of action like the straw hats waiting isn't the usually the best choice, there's always a clock ticking somewhere, and the sound of it in their ears is enough to make their heads ring with the loss of each second.

The ring is drowned out by the sounds of Luffy uncurling.

Chopper squeaks and Nami turns immediately, Usopp squeezes his sandwich, like it isn't already dented with his fingerprints on the soft bread.

The child in the corner swipes a hand across his face and looks away from them, using the wall for support he stands, a slow, shuddering process that leaves Chopper wanting to go help him up.

"H-hi… I'm L-l-luffy…" He says to the wall before tensing and turning around, his lips spread and his eyes squeezed shut, a giggle rises in his throat as he shakes with holding in breaths heavy with tears, but it looks like mirth.

Nami feels her heart stop.

The smile is wide as ever, the laugh seemingly effortless. His face is stained red with emotion as a few final tears drip off his chin but the smile, the laugh, everything but the stutter: normal Luffy.

"I- I wasn't too nice b-before… Sorry. You guys are weird, so i-it scared me."

He steps away from the wall and the way he walks fumbles in a stumble only once, he's bouncy and bounding, pulling himself up into the chair next to Usopp and reaching for a sandwich.

Sanji rolls his cigarette between his teeth, a headache building between his eyes. Chopper is staring wide-eyed, paralyzed. Usopp shakes himself out of it first.

"What the heck luffy!" He siezes the boy's wrist and the smile wobbles for a second as the sandwich falls from his hand. "You think we didn't see that? What are you doing? What's wrong?"

They all watch as his eyes dart again, they linger, between them and on them, like there's something there that isn't.

"N-nothing. Nothing's wrong, at all!"

A lie. It's the first time he could have fooled them, any of them. If they'd not seen his break down, if they'd not been stared at with the utmost fury and fear, they'd think it was the truth.

It's a well made mask that he's wrapped around himself.

"You guys just scared me. I dunno where I am and I dunno who you are so I got scared. You're nice though, so nothing's wrong!" he giggles, _giggles,_ and Nami sets her sandwich down, feeling queasy.

"That's not true and you know it." She hisses and Luffy twists around to look at her, _confused._ "Luffy I don't know what happened to upset you, but this is _wrong._ You can tell that there is something really wrong about all of this, can't you?"

"Ah.. no, no…"

"Luffy _listen to yourself._ What happened? You can tell us, you can trust us."

He sucks in his smile, chews on his lip, shakes his head.

"No I can't." _Trust us or tell us?_ Nami wants to ask, but she doesn't because Luffy's eyes tell her _Both._ "Nothing happened. I'm not upset."

" _Luffy."_ Chopper shakes himself out of his paralysis, almost growling as his eyes tear. "It's not healthy to bag up your emotions like this! I'm a doctor but I can't bandage a wound you keep hidden!"

"I'm not hiding anything!" Luffy protests, standing up in his seat, the tremor is back. "What are you? You look like an animal but you talk?" The tremor, he pretends it's excitement, like anger and sadness isn't rattling around in his head.

"That's not important," Usopp snaps. "You're _lying._ That's _my_ job. Be Luffy! Tell the truth, and get all emotional! Hug us and tell us you want some meat and stop pretending like everything's normal because it's _freaky."_

"Everything _is_ normal!" Luffy insists but his voice is strained, his fists clenched, desperate.

"Nothing is normal!" Usopp pushes back his chair and stands up, pointing a finger at his shivering captain. "The man I look up to most in the world has been shrunk down to the age of six or seven, just spent the better part of fifteen minutes crying in a corner, and is now pretending nothing is wrong. And he looks exactly like he always does." He shakes his head frantically, groping at the air with his gesticulation. Luffy shifts on his feet, shrinking away from Usopp as he yells. He winces as Usopp lunges forward and forces Luffy to look at him. Usopp's voice is almost a warble, pleading, watching Luffy's brown eyes water and focus on his own. "What the heck do you think you're doing? You think it's funny? it's _scary_ Luffy. What are we supposed to think now when you smile like that?"

"Usopp…" Nami breathes and Sanji leans against the counter. The music outside has fallen so quiet that it is no longer there.

"I _can't."_ Luffy whispers quietly. "I have to be brave. Shanks saved me from the bandits, he says I'm a man now, I shouldn't cry. Ji-chan says that strong marines don't cry. I'll be a super strong pirate one day, and I'll need to be strong for my crew too. I can't be a weak captain." He sucks in a sniffle, straightens. "So it's okay." The smile that had slowly broken and fallen out of place is taped back together, placed lightly back into position. "I can be strong, and keep getting stronger! I don't need time to cry! I'll just make sure it never happens again! I'm alright!" He grins again. The effort is evident. "N-nothing's wrong!"

He looks so proud of himself, with the tears pounding against the back of his eyes, and his fists shaking as he clenches them at his sides.

Usopp falls back into his chair, looking like Enel just shocked him with a few hundred volts of electricity.

"You're joking," he whispers and Sanji drops his cigarette to the floor, stamping down on it and twisting his heel till the ashes are mixed equally with the wood.

"You're an _idiot."_ He spits, venomous. "We all knew you were stupid, but you're an absolute _idiot."_

Luffy looks confused and is about to defend himself but Nami interrupts him.

"Everyone's allowed to cry, Luffy." She chokes out.

"You think you have to be strong like that for _us?"_ Chopper whispers. "Have you always…?"

"It doesn't have anything to do with you!" Luffy shakes his head, pauses "Who are you even? Cause I actually do wanna know where Shanks is, cause…" He stops short and readjusts his smile. "Cause nothing."

"Enough of that, Luffy. Cause _what?_ " Nami demands and Chopper nods determinedly beside her; Usopp's shaking.

"You guys are annoying!" He huffs and crosses his arms.

"Don't you!" Nami stands up, her fist impending. "Luffy you're going to sit there and tell us a sob story or I'm going to make you cry myself!"

"Nami-San is so determined!" Sanji coos and Usopp glares at him.

"You're mean!" Luffy yells, pouting.

"I don't care! You're delusional! Everyone cries! You'll hurt yourself if you don't."

"It's the body's way to release stress and emotion!" Chopper butts in, angry. "If you've been doing this since you were six-"

"I'm seven!" Luffy protests indignantly.

"-seven then no wonder your blood pressure is so high!"

"What's blood pressure?"

"It's bad! Stress increases it and it's proven to increase your chance of death!" Chopper stamps a hoof.

"Wha, really!" Usopp wails. "He gets into enough trouble already he doesn't need to increase his chances!"

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here! I hate it when Sh-I mean people do that!" Chopper delves into a detailed medical spiel full of foreign words and jargon of the trade, leaving Luffy blinking rapidly as each sentence sends his brain reeling anew.

"Listen to Chopper, tell us what's wrong!" Nami shook his hand angrily before he pulled his hand away, his head had begun to swivel between the four of them as they each plead with him to tell them what was wrong.

"Don't be stupid!"

"-increased heart rate which pumps blood at an unbelievable speed through the veins, which builds up pressure against-"

"How long have you been hiding stuff like this?"

"Tell us what's wrong!"

"NO!" He yells, breaks into quiet cries as he cements his hands to cover his ears. "Stop! I don't want to talk about it! Not Shanks, not bandits, or sea monsters, and not how scared I am!"

Usopp and Nami exchange guilty looks and Chopper shuts his jaw with an audible click, severing the stream of words. Only Sanji looks unabashed.

"You understand, don't you?" He pulls out a chair, sets himself down in it like he hadn't a care in the world, busying his hands with his lighter, offering it to a once more teary Luffy who sniffles and snatches the shiny thing, playing with the embossed silver and gold ridging. "That it's okay to be scared, okay to cry."

"No it's not, I'm a man."

"So you're saying I'm not?" Sanji barks a laugh and frowns down at the child who has shrunk slightly, thinking he'd offended him. His hands still, his fingers paused in their running over the spark switch. "I'm a man, Luffy, but that doesn't mean I don't cry. Listen," He takes the lighter back. "No one is not allowed to be scared, everyone is allowed to cry. The only time that stuff is a problem is if you don't get over it."

Luffy looks up slowly, staring into Sanji's stoic face. He nods.

"That's… good. 'Cause… cause I'm not very good at not crying…" The tears are falling before he's done and Chopper sags with relief against Usopp who pats his head in condolence.

"I didn't mean anything by it!" Luffy whimpers "I just wanted to help Shanks, I never thought, I never thought any of it would happen like it did!"

And he tells them all about it.


	4. So much for that plan

Eight hundred one

It was probably nothing.

Eight hundred two

They could handle it.

Eight hundred three

He is on watch.

Eight hundred four

Ignore it.

Eight hundred five

 _Ignore it._

Ugh. He sets the weight down with a loud clang, rolling it to the side as he leans close to the wall to look out one pane of the panoramic windows of the observation deck.

Endless ocean in every direction, a few clouds scattered above the sapphire, spoiling the pale hue the sky. If he squints then there might be a speck of pink on the horizon; maybe a sea king, maybe a ship, it doesn't matter much.

He steps away again, bends for a new weight. Nothing to distract him.

The wailing spikes and Zoro curses under his breath, hands flinching to his swords.

Some would call him weak, he can't control the instinctual twitch, but instinct has been what keeps him in the game for a very long time.

Zoro wraps his fingers around a weight handle, closes his eye, focuses on using only certain muscles.

It isn't that he can't stand to hear his captain cry, (he hears that all the time, dramatic as the idiot is) it's the fact that he makes a point of being there when it's sincere crying. Like Water Seven with Usopp. It doesn't happen often, and Zoro knows he tries to keep it hidden, which is why he tries to be present, because he can understand wanting to be alone, but Luffy isn't an alone sort of person. If Zoro doesn't see him let it out, most likely, he hasn't let it out. He wants to be there, and he wants to know he's done what could be done.

Eight hundred six

He has a job _here._ On watch and stuff.

Eight hundred seven

Nami and Usopp can handle it.

Eight hundred eight

Let them handle it.

Just keep on training. Ignore it, ignore it, _ignore it._

The wail quiets.

Zoro shuts his eye and lets out a breath, pausing in the middle of a lift.

Time passes quicker, an hour, maybe two. Sunlight slants across the floorboards as he cycles through his exercises, till sweat begins to glisten on his chest.

He stops when there's a light knock on the trap door, a courtesy, though she knows no one else does it. Robin. She pushes open the door.

"Good evening, Zoro." She greets and he nods in reply. "I thought I might come early for my shift, I know it gets lonely up here."

He shrugs as extra arms begin to pass books up the mast and stack them in a pile by the door. He doesn't mention that she is in fact an hour and a half early.

"Nothing's been happening," He gestures to the windows and she tilts her head as though considering his statement next to her own planned response before saying her part.

"Yes, but I'm certain you heard the small fiasco we faced earlier."

"Didn't sound small," He keeps his eyes trained on the horizon while Robin situates herself on one of the cushioned benches rimming the room, her pile of books beside her.

"Luffy regained a number of memories," She admits "Though it was quite a shock, he aged physically before mentally. He was understandably upset upon discovering he'd no longer be able to swim but was completely unaware as to how it had happened."

"And?"

She sniffs humorously, flipping open the first page of one of the books.

"Once he'd almost calmed down again he began to remember, all in a rush apparently. Nami described it as being transported to the moment. He thought he'd just been rescued from a sea king by Shanks, he was rather panicked. Apparently Shanks was grievously injured in the rescue."

"'S a shame."

"Not particularly. It all happened twelve years ago and it couldn't have been that life changing. He's a yonkou despite of it. Did you know Shanks only had one arm?"

"Yeah, not till recently though."

"Interesting,"

"I never knew Luffy was the reason he gave it up."

They sit in the silence, watching the ocean , Robin skimming through pages and Zoro running his fingers around the hilts of his swords.

"This isn't gonna work," He draws the white katana, tilts it so the tempered metal reflects in a clear sheen. "We're in the New World. He _knows_ that."

"Knew," Robin corrected.

"He _knows."_ Zoro insists. "This is why we waited two years. And more than the last two years has been erased. It makes it all pointless."

Robin nods.

"He's our responsibility."

"I don't like this," The sword whips to the side and comes to an instantaneous stop as Zoro's muscles tense.

"It's hardly your choice." He tips his head to glare and she raises her eyes to meet his gaze. A beat, two beats, three. She smiles, though it's not much as each of her smiles last but a few seconds.

"It will pass, we will make it through."

"I'll make sure of _that."_ Zoro growls re-sheathes Wado. Robin nods, drops her eyes back to the book.

"As will I. He has things to do, no?"

"That's right, a goal to achieve. We're sailing full speed ahead as soon as he remembers that he's got it."

"Oh, I don't believe it ever went away."

 **~3~**

She swishes the orange juice around the glass, watching the color wash over the clear glass and then drip back into the bottom of the glass. At least, that's what she was pretending to do. Really she's keeping a close eye on Luffy who has not moved from the railing for over fifteen minutes.

Granted it was pretty interesting to watch an island on the grand line, and it was what Luffy usually did when they came to a new port, though it was different for a child Luffy stare in awe at all the strange stuff then it was for an adult Luffy to bounce over everyone yelling about all the cool stuff he saw.

"Naaaamiiiii," He yawns, tipping over the railing and then leaning back again. Franky had installed his Luffy-proof railings on this part of the ship only so that Luffy could watch the ship sail in, they kept him aboard but it wasn't perfect; Luffy-proof railings mean that they have a post that you tie one arm to. Franky had assured them he was working on a different design.

"Yeah?" She's been fielding questions for the better part of fifteen minutes, he asks the strangest things, but this is Luffy, without the experience that he's had with other islands.

"Why does the mountain smoke? Is it angry?"

"Sort of," She sets down the glass and gazes out at the island again. It's on the larger side, which is good. It wasn't their original plan to dock here, Luffy had had his sights set on a port a bit to the West of this one, but what with his current form they'd made a group decision to skip out on an island that might be too dangerous to even have a port and instead land on the first, least dangerous island they came across.

Aside from the volcano, this one is looking pretty good.

"That mountain has stuff called lava in it, that's like… liquid rock, it's red and really hot," She considers for a moment. "If you see any don't touch it, kay?"

"Mhm," He hums absently.

"So the lava gives off smoke, which is why the mountain gives off smoke," Nami finishes her explanation and Luffy nods, still humming, watching the ash cloud above the island. The volcano had almost convinced them to keep sailing in search of another island, but a closer look at the port showed a thriving marketplace and trade center, meaning that the mountain probably wasn't a real threat. There's all sorts of other interesting aspects on the island so Luffy has been pointing out each and every one and asking questions, even the ones that aren't noteworthy ("Hey! Look at that!" "What?" "That! See the cliff?" "Uh, yeah. Nice cliff…" "Yeah, that's really cool!").

Nami and Usopp had had to relay a shortened version of the Shanks fiasco to the rest of the crew, met with a unified unrest and varied degrees of horror, distress and quiet contemplation, but it truly seemed to be in the past for Luffy. They'd convinced him Shanks was fine and Luffy had cried for almost an hour before finally admitting that he felt a lot better. When Luffy had begun to question them, they'd explained that a mystery portal had brought him to them and he was actually twelve years in the future; a smaller lie then what they'd previously give him.

"Wha?! Does that mean I'm…" He'd counted on his fingers "...fifteen?"

"Nineteen," Robin had corrected "But I'm sure we'll figure out a way to get you back to your timeline very soon." Luffy had agreed and asked no further questions.

If he asked, they were stopping at the island to try and locate a voodoo witch fabled to be skilled in both the art of time travel and of making meat stew (cover story courtesy of Usopp the Great)

"Namiiiii! Is that lava?"

"No, Luffy, I told you, lava goes _inside_ the volcan-oh jeez!" The ship shifts to starboard and a new side of the island came into view, a red and black river steams as it bleeds slowly, seeping down the side of the volcano and directly through a jungle like forest to deposit itself into the sea, sinking quickly into the depths of blue. "Uhm, yeah, Luffy, that _is_ lava."

"Mhm, you're right, it looks hot…"

The spectacle passes but Nami now fears for the safety of the island much more, a live lava river never spells 'good omen'; the rest of the island may also be dangerously deceptive. She keeps an eye on the coast, trying to identify the worst dangers as they turn in to dock, trying to figure out what to warn Luffy's next set of chaperones about before they get set loose on the island.

"Ok Li'l Luffy-bro!" Franky calls from the lower deck, sauntering out into the open air, a tropical print shirt flared open over his metal chest and his shoulder rotator orbs gleaming from a fresh polishing. Luffy's attention immediately snags on the cyborg who had already charmed him with his greeting earlier ("Hey Li'l Luffy-bro, _mecha_. Nice to meet you, _mecha_." "He's a robot!?" "Cyborg… _mecha._ ") and he strains against his arm as it stretches and pulls him back into the pole on the railing.

"Uncle Franky is ready to take you out!" Franky poses as Nami rolls her eyes and pulls Luffy's arm out of the knot, releasing the boy to go fawn over his self appointed 'uncle'. Really though, she feels more like an older sister, which is weird to say the least. He's nineteen for goodness sakes, not _actually_ seven.

"Where are we gonna go?" Luffy asks, clinging to Franky's leg as Sanji strides out to stand beside the two.

"Shopping," he replies, looking down at the boy who cranes his neck to stare up at him from his perch on Franky's leg, gleeful. "Franky needs some new mechanical parts for a project he's working on."

"That's right! I'm improving the shark sub to go to greater depths, need a metal with a better strength, or a pressure balancing system; I can get both of them here!" Franky explains and Luffy nods like he understands, a serious expression coming over his face. Finally he snickers and the serious look melts away to leave his face guileless.

"So it's a mystery trip!" He laughs and points to the dock, grinning widely. "Let's go!"

Franky laughs indulgently and Sanji smiles around his cigarette.

"Alright! Hold on, _mecha_." Franky sweeps up the boy who squeals and giggles madly as he's set on Franky's shoulders, his legs straddling the cyborgs neck, and he clutches at the hair that suddenly bursts from Franky's scalp, still giggling. Franky clambers onto the railing and makes a leap to the dock, Sanji hopping up and preparing to jump down as well, only pausing when Nami calls his name.

"Yes, my beloved?" He whips around and steps down to the deck to kneel. "How may I be of service?"

"Just make sure you keep him away from the lava," Nami reminds "He'll probably find it and he'll probably forget I warned him it's hot. I don't think that seven year old Luffy will be as invulnerable as Luffy usually is."

"Anything you ask of me, Nami-san!"

She nods and lies back on her deck chair, picking up her orange juice glass and taking a sip, waving her hand so Sanji will go ahead, Franky alone can't possibly keep track of the hyper boy.

Heck, the entire crew working together can't possibly keep track of the boy.

 **~3~**

"Wow! It looks just like home!"

Sanji glances down at the boy as he bounds around the pair's feet, almost like a puppy who doesn't want to wander too far but still wants to run.

After Franky had made inquiries into the metal he was looking for he'd been told that the best place to get it was a lava spring on the Southern side of the island, towards the base of the mountain, consequently fairly deep in the jungle forest of the island.

Luffy was having the time of his life.

While Sanji and Franky hike slowly Luffy flits about, climbing halfway up trees before Sanji reaches up and pulls him down, chattering about how Shanks would sometimes go into the woods and come back with lots of food and how Makino took him up to the edge sometimes and let him play while she talked to some dairy farmers that lived in the upper hills of his island and fleetingly he mentioned how he always liked the jungle when his Grandpa took him into it to fight monkeys.

Mostly the only thing they had to do to keep him satisfied was nod and make slight noises of understanding, and then he'd skirt on to another topic or trip on a rock and stay on the ground to oggle a beetle crawling around.

"Gotta admire his sense of adventure," Franky chuckles "Not all seven year olds can look at this situation as a good opportunity, I know a few kids that would've sat around the ship and cried for their parents."

"After all this I don't think he ever knew his parents," Sanji muses "We knew he'd never met his dad before, but I assumed he'd stayed with his mother in that case." He steps to the side as Luffy loses his grip on the tree he is climbing and plummets to the ground where Sanji had been standing; he lay still for a moment before jumping to his feet and attempting again, growling that he wouldn't be beaten by a tree.

"Besides, Are you really surprised that Luffy was always like he is?"

"Haha! You're right there!" Franky guffaws and Sanji reaches up to pull Luffy off the tree before he got too high again.

"Come on, crap kid, we're moving on."

"But I wanna climb the tre- WOW!" Luffy's jaw drops as the trio cuts through a thin layer of brush to reveal the lava spring, a bubbling red and black spurt of lava dribbling out of a crack in the wall of the volcano and pooling into a swirling pool of harsh, glowing, grays and blacks, the shore of the pool made entirely of solid metal, gray with a black sheen.

Surprisingly, this was not what Luffy was gawking at.

Luffy wriggles out of Sanji's grip and stumbles over the uneven, scorched, sometimes grassy ground, throwing himself around the trunk of a particularly tall tree, more out of the forest then in. Where many plants in the same sort of position had succumbed to the lava this one remains tall, had maybe even grown stronger, judging by the extra thick width of its roots. Luffy is won over immediately.

"It should have a treehouse!" He murmurs, staring upwards, slowly lifting one sandaled foot to begin the climb, scratching against the bark as he begins his ascent. He nudges slowly up the tree before going still, sliding back to the ground, only a few feet beneath him. His head tilts to the side and his form sags momentarily.

"Luffy?" Sanji steps forward, Franky's face is grim as he steps in close behind.

A shiver runs through the boy and suddenly he's on his feet again, and he's _loud._

"Aaaaaaaaaccceee!" He wails, scrabbling at the tree, trying to climb higher, but falling a little short. "Ace, I can't get up! Ace you said you'd carry me up today! Aaaaaaacee!" He whines and scrabbles at the bark, pressing his face into the bark. He sniffles. "Sabo would help me up, Ace. Ace, I miss Sabo!"

Sanji had stiffened at Ace's name and the two exchange glances before Franky prompts the boy, stepping forward.

"Hey Luffy," The boy whips around, dropping to the ground and holding up his hands like he thought he was holding something. "Who's Sabo?"

Luffy's eyes dart between them and he clenches his fists around air, looking shocked as he realizes that there's nothing in them.

"My pipe…?" He asks himself, quizzical. He spins around. "Ace! Help! There are…" He stares at the top of the tree, where, of course, there is nothing. "...Ace?" He spins around to stare at them again, flashes the glance up to the tree and then back down at them, tears budding in his eyes. "Ace would never leave me!" He snarls weakly at the two of them. "Don't touch me cause he's my big brother and he'll beat you up! I'll beat you up first though!"

It was all bravado, they could tell that, but it was strange on Luffy, who usually had plenty of power to back up his threats. There was something else underlying it too.

"Go ahead and try, Luffy-bro! You can't punch through my SUPER cyborg armor!" Franky poses and Luffy falters in his attack amazed by the cyborg. Surprisingly, he shakes it off pretty quickly.

"Gotta find Ace." He mutters and Sanji pulls out a cigarette, lighting it with an easy motion.

"Luffy, I think we better explain some things to you…"

"Shut up!" He shouts and suddenly pulls his fist back. "I fight Ace all the time! I'm super strong! Gum Gum…!" He rears back and lunges forward throwing his fist toward them.

"Woah! Luffy-bro!" It's not like it could actually hurt either of them, but the last thing they need is for this to come to blows, something this _stupid_. Unfortunately, that seems inevitable as the fist rockets more or less toward Franky's face.

But it doesn't hit. Surprisingly.

Luffy grins like he's landed a successful blow as his arm shoots just past Franky's face, and he looks very focused as he tenses the muscles in his arm and it warps in it's path to twist around Franky's neck…

"Yeah!" He cheers, and before either of his chaperones have any clue what's happening he's breezing between the two of them, propelled by the retraction of his own arm as he goes careening into the trees behind them. "Rocket!"

"Shoot, Luffy!" Sanji almost trips over himself as he spins and charges into the jungle after him, but the little bugger is fast, and he's already out of sight. "Darn it!" Sanji snarls "Come on Franky!"

Luffy is physically loud at all times, but the same corresponds to his haki voice, no one with observation haki can possibly not hear him, his voice is just unbelievably loud.

That sometimes just means that it echos.

"Luffy-bro! Where are ya hiding?" Franky bellows and Sanji plods along behind him, hands in his pockets. "Come on out! We're aren't that bad!"

"Shut up, stupid cyborg," Sanji lightly kicks Franky's shin and tilts his head, trying to listen better, rubbing his finger in one ear. "I can hear him, but I can't tell exactly where…"

"Oh, there he is!" Franky guffaws and trundles forward, reaching up into a tree where Luffy had been cowering but now is jumping away with a strangled sort of squawk as Sanji darts forward and locks the boy between his arms and chest. Sanji can feel Luffy struggling, somewhere in the last five minutes Luffy got wet and his shirt is seeping water onto Sanji's suit. Sanji growls.

"Calm down already! What, are you crying?"

"NO!" Luffy denies, still wiggling impatiently as he tries for his freedom. "I'm not crying, only babies cry, I'm a man!"

"A little man, sure." Franky jokes and Luffy glares as the shipwright laughs.

"Leave me alone, you big bullies!" He rears back a foot and gets Sanji in the shin wth a weak kick from a soft rubber foot. Sanji looks down at him and snorts. Luffy mantles.

"Listen brat, you ought to learn this right now because it's kind of important. Listen before you start attacking because you might start beating up people who don't want anything to do with you."

"You're chasing me, don't blame me for beating you up." Luffy gripes back, Sanji rolls his eyes.

"We're chasing you because we're supposed to watch out for you, can't do that if we're not there when you get into trouble. What's got you all riled?"

"I don't know you." Luffy answers bluntly.

"Make some new friends than, dimwit, you're good at that." He hands Luffy to Franky and smirks. "Sanji." Luffy glowers at him.

"And I'm Franky." Franky bellows. Luffy struggles for another moment before letting himself go limp, biting his lip.

"Luffy."

"We know." Sanji grouses, "Now why don't you know us?"

"Should I?" Luffy remains petulant, refusing to look at either of them as they begin to plod back towards the lava spring, no way in heck Sanji was walking all the way out here again so Franky could get what he wanted, they'd get it now.

"Yeah, you should," Sanji 'hmphs', "You should also know that you're not supposed to wander off, you're a crappy kid who follows trouble around like a lapdog."

"Not true! Trouble follows me! That's what Sabo says…" He quiets again and than chews on his lip before looking at them again. "Ace says I follow trouble though, so maybe. I don't think so."

"'Course you don't think so. If we thought you did it on purpose you wouldn't ever leave the ship."

"The ship?" Luffy perks up and Franky informs him proudly:

"The Thousand Sunny, best pirate ship this side of the Grand Line! And this is the better side so it's better than those on the other side too."

"A pirate ship?" Luffy repeats, suddenly eager. "I wanna see, I _really_ wanna see, show me, can you take me and show me?"

"Sure! Stick close and we'll start heading back once I'm done collecting this SUPER cool type of metal, wanna watch?"

"Yeah!" And just like that the situation seems diffused, Franky sets Luffy down before Sanji can stop him but the boy doesn't do anything more than flit annoyingly around Franky as he starts to chip out chunks of the metal from the banks of the spring.

Sanji smokes off to the side as they chat energetically and intermittently burst into loud exclamations of SUER and _sugoi!_ They're such crappy kids, and heck, Franky's like _thirty_.

When Franky has the metal he wants he ties it up with a rope he brought and hefts the heavy load onto one of his shoulders, than strides confidently back the way they had come, hardly burdened at all, which causes Luffy to praise him for his strength and ask if he can carry some because Ace only ever lets him carry light stuff cause he thinks he's weak but he's _not_ and _Sabo_ agrees but Ace never does and he has to get stronger to prove him wrong and prove Sabo right because he wants Sabo to be prou-

And the chatter cuts off just like that, midword Luffy dims and droops, suddenly deciding that he's not happy and he's gonna be dejected and a depressing mess for a bit. Sanji puffs out a small plume and reaches down to pull on Luffy's cheek. The boy straightens and curls one hand into a fist, an angry expression coming to light but then cooling as quickly as it came.

"Don't pull on that," He grumbles and slaps lightly at Sanji's hand till he lets go.

"I wouldn't need to if you didn't keep dropping off like that. What, you keep deciding you don't want to bother with us?"

"No," Luffy evades, wandering a little further ahead and rubbing at his cheek "I'm thinking."

"Good one." Franky snorts and Sanji smirks around his cigarette.

"What about?"

"My brothers." Luffy's voice verges on excitement before dropping back down into evasion "Why do you care?"

"'Cause we care about you, Luffy-bro!" Franky rocks backward on his heels and shoots him a look that borders on perplexed as he lifts his shades. "If you're upset than we want to fix it."

"I don't even know you," Luffy repeats edgily, crossing his arms.

"Sure you do, I'm Franky, and he's Sanji. Come on Luffy-bro, we were having a good time!" Franky urges and Luffy hesitates for a moment before seeming to settle with the idea.

"I miss Sabo…" He finally says, deflating even further. "Ace is great but, but Sabo's Sabo and Ace is Ace and I don't want just one, I want both of my brothers!" he finishes in a rush, spreading his hands in exasperation.

"Where did Sabo go?" Sanji asks and Luffy looks up at him with hurt in his eyes.

"Sabo left." He grumbles. "Sabo's a noble and his parents wanted him back." He shrugs like it doesn't matter but it clearly does. "Sabo didn't want them to hurt us so he left."

"Good brother than, smart kid." Franky acknowledges, and Luffy shakes his head furiously.

"No! He wasn't smart, and that's weird because Sabo's really smart! But he shouldn't leave us! We miss him, it makes Ace mean." He pouts and bounces a little ahead because he'd been falling behind. "We're safer together. Besides, now he's gonna miss the pirate ship!"

"He is, he's going to miss a super cool ship," Franky agrees mournfully and Sanji elbows him irritably. "You'll get to tell him all about it later so that doesn't matter too much! Don't you worry about it Luffy-bro, he'll be back before you know it!"

"I guess," Luffy fades out of the conversation again and this time neither pursues it, they have enough to chew on for now, and talking about it isn't helping at all. Live and let lie, maybe, is the best strategy to apply here.

Luffy doesn't cheer even as they meander back into the town, remaining morose even as their surroundings shift into a colorful port town with vendors and loud crowds, just the sort of thing that Luffy likes. Walking through the market seems to try his resolve though, his stomach grumbles loudly and he almost floats after a few of the scents, always pulling back and grumbling to himself, sometimes to cover the grumble in his stomach.

"Do you want something to eat?" Sanji asks against his better judgement, knowing that if the answer is yes he'll have to buy out a whole food stand and if the answer is no he'll get him something anyway because he already _knows_ that his captain is hungry and asking is just courtesy. He won't let him go hungry, especially if he's keeping himself hungry on purpose. It doesn't happen often but it's stupid as heck when he does do it. What Sanji _should do_ is cook up a big meal when they get back to the Sunny.

He asks anyway.

"No," Luffy lies, resolute as he ducks away, trying to hide his horrible poker face.

"How about ice cream?"

"I don't want ice cream."

Ice cream it is.

As Sanji wanders closer to the sides of the street, inspecting the various ice cream vendors for reasonable prices and fairly good quality ice cream he spies something that makes his hackles rise.

A man in a white uniform is dashing around a street corner, ducking as though hiding, and if Sanji doesn't know that uniform than he isn't worthy of being a pirate, because _crap_ they've got a marine on their tail. He curses and steps after the fleeting flash of white disappearing around the corner before he hears Franky laughing behind him and he turns for a moment to make sure he's not being stupid and laughing at Luffy for doing something stupid. He's not, he seems to be laughing at some younger kids who have come to inspect the strange robot like man that has invaded their street. He looks back and checks around the corner but the marine is long gone, of course he is, they never stick around long. He stalks along for a few more steps before forcing his stride to even out, it won't matter if he's tense, so long as he keeps an eye out… Nothing to be done about it now anyway, if one marine knows then so do the rest in the area. And certainly there are a lot, marines are too cowardly to go anywhere without at least a whole battleship watching their backs.

He snorts and blows out a few rings of smoke to cool his nerves, then saunters back toward the food stands, he thinks he might have spied a gelato vendor in there, Luffy would definitely like that...

 **~3~**

"And then you got him ice cream?" Brook asks, clarifying.

"Yes! Heck, if I knew you were all going to get so worked up over a treat to cheer a kid up I wouldn't have done it!"

The congregation sat around the table in council. Almost full. Robin and Chopper had been left to Luffy-wrangle outside because, well, someone had to do it, and Chopper was pretty good at keeping up with the bubbly captain on a normal day, so why not now? Robin, for her part, had eyes on the room, literally, ears too, so it wasn't like she was missing anything.

The meeting was currently meant to determine Sanji's punishment for returning to the ship with a sugar hyped Luffy. Also to discuss what Sanji and Franky learned.

"It's good that you cheered him up, but did you have to give him ice cream? Why not a meat skewer?" Nami holds her head in her hands, staring down at a notebook with lines and lines of writing scratched out. With Luffy out of their hair for a few hours they'd all been putting their heads together to try and find a solution, and a cause for the whole fiasco. Possibilities so far: Devil fruit, nearby island, general Grand Line weirdness.

The devil fruit option is both circled and crossed out.

"Not to mention, _two_ ice creams, Luffy's hyper enough as it is…"

"I'm so sorry, Nami-san! The crappy kid stole mine before I ate it. Half of Franky's too." He growls, rolling a smoking cigarette between his fingers.

"I let him have some of mine," Franky shrugs "Kid was downright mopey, cramping my super style."

"Why was he upset again?" Usopp asks "He was normal when he left."

"Lapse," Sanji grunts, "Like when he remembered Shanks, weirdest thing."

"He sees this huge tree," Franky holds up his hands "Monstrous, and he starts trying to climb."

"Talking the whole while about how it needs a treehouse," Sanji adds. "And then…"

"Bam!" Franky claps and the metal clangs, "Starts yelling for Ace, pulled right out of time, he had no idea who we were or where he was. Ran off the second he could."

Zoro leans across the table and picks up a fresh bottle of beer, popping the cork out and taking a swig. He points the mouth at Sanji. "So you two idiots go chasing after him and tell him…?"

"That we're not gonna hurt him and he's on a weird new island."

"So he doesn't know who any of us are?"

"Not at all, Nami-swan!"

"He knows we're pirates." Franky shrugs. "And our names. Probably Robin's and Chopper's at this point too."

Usopp pulls out a new sheet of paper and starts drawing a few charts and scribbling out notes while Brook ducks out to go try and calm down Luffy with Chopper as Robin swaps in, peering over Usopp's shoulder.

"And the reason he was upset was because of his brother, correct?" She points to an error on Usopp's paper and he erases it furiously. "Sabo was kidnapped?"

"Yeah, and Luffy-bro got into a fight with Ace-bro because he thought that they should go get Sabo-bro, but Ace thought he'd be happier where he was."

"Because Sabo was a noble, they're all sworn brothers, turns out." Robin nods. "I see, Luffy's from Dawn island, so Sabo would have been a noble in the Goa kingdom. The island is known for it's huge forest, so the trees are probably reminiscent of the vegetation Luffy grew up with if he lived in the mountains, which we are assuming he did."

"Jeez, these kids lived alone on a mountain in a treehouse." Nami rubs her forehead, "On one hand no wonder Luffy has no idea how to operate in society. On the other, how bad a job could Garp _do._ "

"Really bad," Zoro grunts and the rest of the table nods solemnly in agreement.

 **~3~**

"Luffy..." Chopper trails off as he follows his tiny captain through the door and into the aquarium, where the hyper-active child comes to a dead standstill, staring at the blue and the fish it enclosed.

"Whoa…" He gapes at the glass which encircles the room, and just as quickly as he'd stopped, darts forward, entirely enraptured. He presses himself against the glass, leaving sticky trails where his fingers (still grimy from the ice cream he'd eaten) rub over the smooth surface. "Look at all the fish! What are they doing in there? That's so cool! That one's red! It's for Ace! Look it, it looks like Ace!" He makes a face at the fish, contorting his features to make it look like those of the fish. His eyes fly open wide as another fish swims close to the glass, yellow with a red band across its middle. "Looklooklook that one's me! It's my hat! Look!" He wrestles his hat off his head and pushes it against the glass, presumably so that the hat can 'look'. "This is so cool! Oh man, Sabo would love this!" His voice dies, his exuberance falling flat and lifeless into a despondent tone. "But Sabo isn't here, is he?" Luffy turns away from the fish tank and look to Chopper who is still standing in the doorway, his mood too has changed rapidly from exasperation to tearful empathy.

"No, I- I mean, I don't really know Sabo, but, he's not here…" He scuffs his hooves nervously, trying to occupy himself. Luffy is staring at him with wide eyes, but he casts them down as he slides down to sit on the lounge chair. He sniffles.

"I miss him already…" He moans, hugging his hat so the straw crackles and Chopper winces. "I don't get why he had to leave…?" He looks up at Chopper again, despondence and heartache glimmering in his eyes, Chopper titters and hurries closer to offer comfort, sifting carefully through his mind to locate a solution to the current dilemma.

"I'm sure Sabo didn't want to leave…" He starts and Luffy nods.

"He didn't, they _made_ him," Luffy's voice is thick with understanding and scorn.

"It's horrible." Chopper whispers, crawling up to sit next to his captain. The boy immediately clings to his soft fur. "The world can be really mean sometimes Luffy. You can't blame anyone. There's not enough people to blame sometimes."

"I can blame _one_ person," Luffy disagrees "I can't blame anyone else when it was only one person's fault!"

"But it's never just one," Chopper comforts, "Sometimes it feels like the whole world pitches in! I lost someone I loved, it wasn't anyone's fault he was just sick, no one killed him. But I thought for a long time that it was my fault, for not being able to treat him. It wasn't."

"It _is_ my fault though!" The small boy almost growls and the sound is so low that Chopper almost doesn't catch it. When the words register he stiffens, holding in the transformation his body is insisting he needs to go into, the words hold the aggression to pull at his instinctual defense.

"It is _not!_ " He gasps and pushes Luffy away so that he can look him straight in the face and tell him as much. "You can't say that Luffy! It's not! I don't even know what _happened_ but I _know_ you would never do something that would get someone you loved in trouble, and you love Sabo, he's your brother!"

"He is." Luffy nods fiercely "And Ace and Sabo say that brothers protect one another, and I didn't, Sabo got _taken_." He clenches his fists and bites his lip. "And he did it for us! That makes it even worse! He protected us but I still couldn't protect him!" Chopper pulled Luffy close as his speech began to slur. "And Ace told me I can't cry because Sabo wouldn't want to see me crying and he doesn't want a crybaby around and so I don't but- but, it's my fault, isn't it? It is."

"It's not." Chopper denies vehemently. "Luffy you can't blame yourself, it ruins everything!"

"Ruins everything?" Luffy repeats numbly.

"Yes, if you blame yourself than it hurts, right?" The boy nods. "So Sabo was trying to protect you, and if you're hurting yourself than that ruins the point of protecting you, you're wasting Sabo's-"

"No!" Luffy gasps, bolting upright "I can't do that!" He turns wild eyes on Chopper who can't help but feel his insides loosen a little, some progress at least…

"Right. And, and maybe Sabo wouldn't want you to cry but don't you think he'd rather you not hurt so much?"

"Yeah…" A hesitant nod.

"Doesn't crying make it feel better?"

"A little…" A carefully averted gaze, the hat is being pulled down over his eyes.

The solution finally arises in Chopper's mind. He scoots closer again and wraps his arms around him, snuggling.

"Then what do you think Sabo would want?"

He's answered by a half strangled hiccup as Luffy hugs him back.


	5. Bizarre, ain't it?

"Luffy! Stay close, I swear if I have to say it again…"

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" Luffy bounces along, trying to pull his arm free of Nami's grip. Problem is it's a tight hold and she doesn't relent at all, not even when he whines and tells her it hurts. Which it doesn't, but that's okay, she doesn't have to know.

The market is loud and crowded, but Luffy doesn't really mind, no one's been mean, and Nami said she'd buy him something; it makes him excited.

After confessing to Chopper and just snuggling for a bit he'd felt much better.(Not much less upset, but less self-accusation was a good start. That's what Chopper said, whatever that meant.) They'd decided that an outing was in order, and since the plan was to get a snack and maybe a few toys to cheer them both up (Chopper is sensitive and Luffy's emotions tend to be contagious) Nami had been the one to gather up a few belli she felt they could spare and take the two out onto the island.

Luffy has strayed away over ten times, drawn by stands in the bazar advertising food, clothing, carved obsidian sculptures, and other odd wares that a seven year old just can't resist. He _is_ starting to wonder if he'll have bruises, despite his rubber powers, Nami is really good at holding on…

Without meaning to he moves a little to the left, wandering closer to a stand and the man there holding out a wooden sphere painted to look like a devil fruit.

"Luffy!" Nami pulls at his arm viciously and it isn't until he's snapped back to her side that he realizes his arm had stretched and Nami is looking warily from side to side. "I told you, no stretching, it's very important!"

"Listen to Nami," Chopper says sternly from behind him "She's smart."

Luffy mumbles an apology and Nami frowns at him before she pulls him forward again and the trio is once again forging through the crowd

Nami keeps her grip cemented onto his wrist as he trails behind them, looking at everything with amazed wonderment. It's silly, really, how easily impressed he is, they've been to much better bazaars.

The evening wears on, past two, and they've eaten now, it was good, chicken and vegetables in tangy sauce that made her lips feel tingly with the spice. Luffy's still licking his lips.

Chopper is asking a local about the volcano, which has been getting steadily more active as the day wears on, it makes Nami nervous. Chopper talks for a moment before plodding back over and sharing what he'd learned.

"It's a regular thing, bi-monthly, apparently." He explains "It's a really active volcano, which means it explodes a lot, but it's never a big deal, not too big anyway. This time the explosion is going to be decent sized, but it's not a danger, people even go watch it erupt from near the top of the cone, you can tell where to stand because everywhere else is covered in lava rocks…"

"We don't have time to go sightseeing Chopper." Nami interrupts "Nor do we really want to give Trouble any more opportunities than he already makes." Chopper nods and wanders closer to Luffy, who is only an arm's length away, but far enough that he hadn't been listening.

Nami glances around, still on guard, she has to be, because Chopper keeps forgetting. But there are marines all over the place, and who knows? So far the marines haven't caused any problems, the ones stationed to keep the peace throughout the bar, but one can't be too careful, or at least Nami can't.

It's a good thing she is on guard, very good, because it's less than eye contact, less than a spare glance. Maybe a brushing of gazes, maybe just an instinctual tickle on the back of her neck, but something about the marine by the corner urges Nami into a duck, pulling Luffy back away from the stall counter where his chubby fingers are reaching for some do-dad that has caught his interest, and in the few split seconds after he'd been jerking away a gunshot rips through the air and a bullet slides peacefully through the air where Luffy's head had been.

The market place dissolves into chaos, but Nami catches sight of the white uniform huddled behind a brown barrel, a thin trail of smoke drifting from the mouth. The shooter, a marine. She curses vehemently and scoops up Luffy, using her other hand to snag one of Chopper's antlers and pull him along. He sputters and protests but runs to catch up while Luffy sits quietly in her arms, seemingly a little shellshocked.

"Was he shooting at me?" He asks suddenly, hands tightening their grip on Nami's hand, "Nami was he trying to shoot me?"

Nami doesn't answer, just pulls them into a turn as she hurtles around the nearest corner and darts through a broiling crowd of panicky pedestrians. A few more shots ring out, she ducks instinctively, but they're behind her, it's good that she turned.

Screams aren't rare in a market place, not on some of the islands in the New World, the occasional slave, a frantic mother who's lost a child in the mob of shoppers, people nearest when an exotic animal on display breaks loose and begins to terrorize the crowd in it's fear and fury. Now the screams become all the more commonplace, normal folk who are caught, or scared of being caught, in the crossfire of the chase between marines and pirates.

Nami feels bad for them, she does, or did. She feels bad to ruin their evening, or their shopping trip, or whatever these normal people were doing with their normal lives, but the sympathy drains away when she listens for shouts of chasing marines and catches snippets of encouragement - _for the marines._

"Chase them out!" "My wares!" "My _children!_ " "Get rid of them!"

Nami scowls, turns again, runs into someone, trips. Chopper shrieks beside her as he runs into someone else, from here on the place is packed, and it's already overflowing, the crowd frothing with movement as people shift and panic, trying to escape the increasing flow of people who have begun to swamp in. It's a miracle that no one's noticed them yet, other than that marine and his squadron, apparently. "Chopper, Chopper!" She locates the little reindeer, huddled as someone's foot impends, and snatches him out of the way, spitting insults at the frazzled woman who had almost trampled their doctor. "Chopper, we've got to get Luffy out of here, back to the Sunny- Oh my God _Luffy."_

It's not something he's done, rather something he hasn't done, that is, anything. He's gone, disappeared into a crowd who's begun to shout his name in anger and trepidation.

 **~4~**

Luffy gasps as he stumbles over the treeline, ducking quickly behind the nearest tree and upon regaining his breath shimmying up the trunk to hide in its branches. He leans over a branch so that the bark digs into his stomach as his shirt rides up, it's the best position to watch through the leaves as people scurry about below. He doesn't see Nami or Chopper, which makes him worried because Nami is going to hurt him when she finds him and blame him for wandering off and besides, they scared him a little earlier…

He doesn't really understand the whole thing, something about everyone knowing he was trouble so no one wanted him around, so he had to stay quiet or people would find him and take him away. Luffy shudders at the thought, the pirate crew he's suddenly become a part of isn't his brothers, but he likes them and he trusts them and he just _knows_ that _away_ isn't a good place to be. He'll be alone all over again, and he only just got these people.

A gunshot rings out and he throws his hands over his mouth to quell the yelp he feels leaping into his throat.

"That was close…" He whispers to himself as he edges back down the tree limb, settling into a diverging point of a few branches. He sits still for a moment, then starts kicking his feet, then starts humming. He watches the ground below him for people so he can go quiet again but he doesn't see any people.

He sees a butterfly.

He gasps as it flutters into view, it's _orange_ and that makes him think Ace _and_ Nami. It's gone as quick as it came though, and he fumbles for a moment before dropping out of the tree and making chase, pinwheeling his arms for balance as he dances over a few roots and then sets out in pursuit, following the glimmer of orange as it glints out in the shadows of the dense canopy.

It was pretty easy to forget that any of the last hour had happened once he couldn't hear the people anymore, it felt like he was back on Goa, tramping through the forest like he owned it because aside from Ace, Sabo and himself, no one is ever in the forest, so it was fine to feel that way, it was justified.

Things intensified quickly, from a light hearted chase to a light hearted hunt, though hunts in general weren't lighthearted, they meant that Luffy had a prey to catch. And he was going to catch it.

Unfortunately, neither of his brothers were around to catch _him_ when his rubber powers worked against him and he set out on his bouncy quest.

 **~4~**

"There are marines on the island and you _lost_ him?" Usopp paces back and forth as Nami rests her head on the table, Chopper is holding back tears, seated on Robin's lap as she pulls random candies out of her pocket and offers them to him.

"The marines that are on the island are the _reason_ I lost him," Nami huffs, though the anger is not directed at Usopp. "Darn, what was I thinking, I should have brought a leash…"

"We're dead, we're doomed!" Usopp yells dramatically until Sanji kicks over his chair and sets a tropical drink in front of Nami.

"You can hardly be blamed, Nami-san, Luffy's a devil, he was bound to get away, he got away from me and Franky."

"But you got him back," Nami points out

"And we'll do it again," He says confidently.

Nami takes a mournful sip of her drink, gaze wandering over the others in the galley, she'd been reluctant to leave the bazar without both her charges but she and Chopper had had to split when the place began to resemble a war zone. Luffy, knowing him, had either gotten himself holed up in some small unreachable place and would be brought back to them by a kindly village girl within the next day, _or_ he'd gotten captured by marines and would show up in the papers by the day after tomorrow with a long article detailing the date and time of his public execution.

Most of them are leaning towards the latter.

Zoro stands up with a long sigh and trundles toward the door, scratching his head with his other hand laid over his swords. The tenseness of his back and the grip of his hand betray his unease.

"Let's go find him."

 **~4~**

There it was, right THERE.

Luffy peers over the root he's hiding behind (it was really dirty and smelled like worms) and grins.

His plan clear in his mind, he shuffles his feet, ready to spring on the unsuspecting insect.

"On three." He whispers "One... Two... Three!"

Going for intimidation he decides to give his best battle cry while he runs towards the tree on which his prey is perched elegantly.

The butterfly is sufficiently intimidated, fluttering off the tree and into the shrubbery while Luffy runs full tilt into the tree.

 _KAFUMP_

Leaves shower down from the canopy and Luffy shakes his head to try and jar his vision into the right angle.

"Ah, wait!" He scrambles to find his footing, half crawling to his feet and then tearing through the bush at a haphazard jog.

What remains of the tranquility of the forest is shattered as the child stampedes through the shrubbery in hot pursuit of the orange butterfly, yelling all the way.

"Don't fly away!" He jumps to catch the edge of a tall tree root and pulls himself over the top of it. "I really like your wings!" Jumping down he sinks several inches into a puddle of murky brown water, mud splattering onto his arms and face. "Euch!" He sticks out his tongue but catches sight of the bug flitting further away. "Wait!" He scrambles out of the puddle and stumbles over the uneven ground, trying to catch up.

"You can't get away!" He declares, running as fast as he can, slowly gaining... Slowly coming closer... Jumpjumpjumpjumpjump!

He jumps, right onto a low hanging tree branch, it catches him in the gut and he yelps as his momentum shifts in a new direction altogether.

He skids into the ground, rolls a few times and then bumps into another tree where he finally settles.

"That was mean!" He yells. Not sure where the butterfly is, but absolutely certain that the whole thing is entirely its fault.

He lifts his head and looks for the butterfly, ready to chase that thing all the way off the island if that's where it flew, it deserves nothing short of long term capture! He'll bring it back to Nami and make her forgive him for running off, kind of sort of. She'll like it because its wings are orange, just like her hair.

Instead, he catches a glimpse of tan and blue, and he hears the gentle rise and fall of the ocean.

His interest immediately captured, Luffy moves forward, pushing bushes out of his way and stepping onto a beach.

A REAL beach.

He'd never been to a real beach, he suddenly realizes. On Dawn Island, he'd gone to the beach a thousand times, to look at tide pools and the ocean and climb on the rocks.

This beach is nothing but sand.

He looks down at his feet, at the golden grains of sand that are sliding into his shoes (not that that's hard, he's in sandals) he wiggles his toes and more spills in between them. He giggles, crouching down in the sand to let it shift through his fingers. This sand is _soft_ he's never felt soft sand. At his beaches it was grainy and wet and hard; here the wind inches forward in a breeze and the grains are sent into a fluttering golden cloud.

And it's _warm_. As though each speck of sand is a tiny ember, except they don't burn.

It's just so... Nice.

He lurches forward and buries his hands in the sand, the heat seeping beneath his skin and settling in around his bones. (He bets Brook would like it here).

He can't help but sigh, and then he giggles; he should bring the crew here, he bets they'd throw a party, and it'd last all nighommph!

A hand claps over his mouth and an arm curls around his torso, clamping his arms to his sides. He yells and sticks his tongue out to lick the hand, but the grip doesn't loosen. It tastes bad too.

He can't see their face, can only feel their calloused palms against his face and arms, the hairs on the back of his neck prickle with unease.

He's promptly wrapped in ropes, his wrists are tied behind his back and his arms are tied to his side, a cloth replaces the hand and he bites it vehemently, eager to take out his frustration. He twists around, glaring, hoping to spark fear into the heart of his attacker, only to have fear struck into his own.

His captor is tall and beefy, a full beard of grimy frizz and a dirty uniform that might have once been white.

A marine uniform.

He sneers down at Luffy, who feels his eyes welling in anger and frustration and fear. The man leers, reaches down and picks up the small boy so that they are nose to nose, Luffy sneezes purposely.

"Hah! How the great have fallen! Ehh, Straw Hat?" Luffy growls at the snub to his hat "Who would have thought that Straw Hat Luffy would be taken in like this! Let's hope it's permanent, I'd like to see you die in this humiliating form." Though confused, Luffy snarls as best he can and curses the man through the gag, wriggling his wrists to try and stretch them through the ropes.

"Uh uh uhh." He pulls a pair of handcuffs out of his back pocket. "Let's not have that. You just need to... Settle down." The moment the first cuff locks around his wrist Luffy feels the effect, he grows listless. It has to be the cuff, he only feels like this when he's hungry and it's never quite this bad. Stupid hunger cuff. His head droops on a noodle neck and his arms bend at an unnatural angle, and it _hurts_.

Confusion mingles with exhaustion in his mind and thoughts begin to roll ever so slowly through his head, he can't muster the strength to pay attention to the stream of consciousness.

"Lucky you're weak enough it doesn't matter the cuffs don't fit quite right... Seastone is a wonderful thing, don't ya think?" Luffy growls weakly as the tone registers as antagonizing but he honestly doesn't understand a word that's being spoken. He's scared, he wants Ace, he wants Sabo.

Panic strikes for a moment, Sabo gave himself up to protect him, now he's getting caught! He can't, he can't throw it all away like that-

The crew. Hope seizes up in his heart and he suddenly knows that the other pirates will come pick him up. They _will_ , he's certain.

He rolls his head away from the man, looks back out at the ocean, where the ship will come from, sailing proudly with the jolly roger hoisted high and the bright figurehead (which was better to sit on than even Shanks', he'd checked) that looks like a lion! They'd come get him, faith swells hopefully to fill his chest, but before he knows it something dark is in his way and his eyes are closing and he is asleep.

 **~4~**

"Luffy!" Usopp yells quietly "Come on! Let's go back to the ship! I'll protect you from all the monsters that lurk in these dark woods!"

"He won't hear you if you yell like that." Zoro strolls past where Usopp is crouching behind a bush with a hefty stick in hand. "Be louder. Like Brook."

"~LUFFY-SAN~" Brook's voice rings out on cue, "It's getting quite dark out! Let us go back to the Sunny! Where I can play you a lullaby!"

"You adjusted to his age way too quickly," Usopp grumbles after the skeleton but he straightens and starts yelling louder.

The woods is full of their cries, and Robin's eyes, all looking for the small Straw Hat captain.

He doesn't feel it until she speaks and Usopp jumps as Robin's voice comes from a mouth grown on the side of his neck.

"I've found something, due West, Nami. Toward the shore." A few calls of confirmation ring out around as they all begin to move toward Robin. When Franky emerges onto the dark shore Robin is kneeling, shining a lantern on muddy footprints and a lone sandal, Sanji is grinding his cigarette between his teeth and Usopp is banging his head against a tree.

"We're dead, we're doomed! We're dead _and_ doomed!" Sanji knocks him over as Robin leans close to the footprints and an abandoned scrap of cloth.

"I'll ask Chopper to confirm but I'm fairly certain that this is chloroform." She holds up the cloth between two fingers, holding it away from her face.

"And that's Luffy-bro's sandal." Franky nods at the abandoned footwear and Robin nods grimly. Brook, Zoro and Nami emerge from the dark tree line and take one look at the evidence before reality settles in, Robin confirms.

"Luffy has been captured."

 **~4~**

Mornings are always the worst after a fight, so that's what he pins it on as his stomach begins to roil and the darkness behind his eyelids slides away to show him a thick metal wall. He moans and whines for a few minutes but Ace doesn't kick him or even make any noise, so he assumes he's on his own.

Which _sucks_.

Something is holding his wrists at a weird angle and when he tries to twist them into a more comfortable shape thick metal digs into his skin and rubs against something which flakes off and leaves air burning his skin. He yowls and struggles to his feet, fighting for the strength to pull himself up into even a sitting position, his head feels fuzzy, his limbs feel heavy.

He manages, props himself up against the wall and stares at the metal bars in front of him, and then down at himself, and then twists a little to look at his hands.

Weird.

He'd been assuming he'd had a fight in the Gray Terminal and had spent the night hiding beneath a slab of metal.

But that doesn't explain a lot of things. Like his lack of wounds, and the handcuffs and the prison bars, oh and he's bigger than usual.

Luffy yawns and hears his jaw crack, he's got an itch in the small of his back, but he can't reach it because his arms aren't stretching right now, which makes it _weirder_ because he _has_ to be able to stretch or else he wouldn't be this tall.

He looks like he's fourteen or something.

The thought makes him giggle, he could beat Ace now, he _must be_ stronger than Ace because now he looked older! Ace is _always_ saying he'd _always_ be the littler brother, but maybe he should look _now!_

"I wouldn't be laughing if I were you."

Luffy jerks his head around to meet the speaker, who is leaning against the far wall, watching him through the bars. He doesn't realize that he is a she until she steps closer and leans into the light, with the long coat and the short haircut that her blond hair has been styled into he still thinks she looks more like a guy.

"I only mean that I wouldn't feel like laughing, given the circumstances." She explains, pulling a brown colored bottle from her pocket, she fingers the cork, watching him. "You're welcome to, if you like, I suppose. It doesn't hurt anything, per se. But after being restrained and thrown in the most secure cell on this ship, I can't see much of a positive light to laugh at. You must tell me the joke. Thirsty?" She holds the bottle through the bars and Luffy chuckles again, then tilts his head and frowns at it.

"Yeah, but I can't reach it, I've never been handcuffed before, just tied up."

"Interesting, in that case, I'll bring it in." She pulls a thick key out of another pocket and fits it into the lock, the whole thing squeals as the door swings inward, just shy of scraping across Luffy's forehead. She pulls out the cork and hands it down, speaking as Luffy tries to work with his body to move in the right directions. Between the unusual proportions of his body and the buzzing, fuzzy feeling in his head he has to reach a few times to get ahold of it.

"I was laughing cause I was thinking about my brother," He says conversationally, fumbling with the bottle to bring it to his mouth.

"Ah, Fire Fist?" She nods and he stops, looking up at her, confused.

"No, Ace. Who's Fire Fist?"

"Oh, my." She puts a hand to her lip and taps her finger there for a moment, watching him. "You don't know about Fire Fist Ace? Or rather, the pirate, Fire Fist Ace?"

"Ace is a pirate already?" He gasps, straining forward and dropping the bottle, which clatters on the ground but doesn't break. "How can he be a pirate? Without telling me? But he doesn't have a ship? He's always with me!" He gabbles and feels the remnants of emotion from Sabo's departure gathering. If Ace left then he'd _really_ have no one! Unless Sabo came back but Ace said Sabo would be happier with the nobles so...

But Ace wouldn't do that. Ace wasn't gonna be a pirate till he was seventeen, they'd decided that. The lady is lying, she's gotta be.

Luffy narrows his eyes at her and she sniffs, rubbing her fingers together as though there was something on them.

"Fire Fist was a Whitebeard pirate, so, no, he didn't have his own ship. And I highly doubt he's with you all the time; after all he's dead."

 _Dead._ The word rings loudly in Luffy's head, through the echoey haze and putting acute awareness and understanding in his mind as things shift into what he suddenly is sure of as the correct perspective. The woman in front of him is different, red haired and a face accentuated by heavy applications of gaudy makeup, a long oval hoop in one ear and a loopy scowl that he somehow knows is omnipresent. Oh that's right, he knows her!

"I suppose the other brat is dead, hm? Small wonder it took so long!" The woman snorts and elbows a few of her fellow gang members. Rosemeare, the new Bluejam of the Gray Terminal.

Just as hated by Luffy and his brother.

"Ace isn't dead," He snarls, "He's left! He's a pirate now, any day now we'll get his bounty poster and it'll be really high!"

"Oh! Really now!" She sneers and leans closer to the teen that her crew had pulled off the trail from Low town to Gray terminal. She reached to her side and picked up a black cloak, waving it near Luffy's face. "Since when have you two been for caution, eh? Don't you just jump the wall, no need for a disguise!"

The boy pulls a long pout, sighing forlornly and grumbling quietly but exasperatedly.

"Ace made me promise to, he says he worries about me. But that's stupid, cause I'm strong, and I'm fine on my own!" The quirky grin is propped back in place, shining with confidence but Rosemeare scoffs, tossing the cloak aside and gesturing for one of her crewmembers to hand her a beer. She yanks a chair over and sits in it backwards, guzzling a long gulp.

"Are we now? Hm? So you're strong enough not to get caught, hm? Amiright?" Luffy nods firmly and she taps the bottle against the chair, listening to the hollow sound of glass against wood. "So tell me… What're ya doin here, mhm?"

Luffy's mouth opens with a confident reply, closes, and then opens again, this time his jaw has dropped.

"Thas right!" She crows and taps the bottle against his chin, watching his slack jawed shock with amusement and hooting as his expression turns pained.

"Let me go!" He pulls at his restraints, wiggling pathetically in his attempts. Rosemeare laughs and takes another swig, patting her knee in amusement.

"What would the great Fire Fist say if he saw you now?" Her voice suddenly changes and the rope coiled around his torso and wrists is absent, replaced by cold metal that bites painfully at his skin.

"Shut up! Ace believes in me! I'm fine!" He curses at her, leaping forward against the chain that hooks him to the wall, the handcuffs digging into his skin all the tighter. His body pulses for a moment as his head spins and a wave of weakness pulls him to his knees, where he still juts forward to try and land a bite on the woman's ankle.

She steps away hastily as he begins to spit curses at her.

"Ace is an awesome big brother, he left to be a pirate and he'll be a great pirate! I can make it just _FINE_ on my own! I'm not lonely! I've got Dadan and Makino and I can do whatever I want and I _like it."_ He tells her vehemently, snorting angrily at the end of his rant as he stares up at her, until after a moment passes confusion finds it's way onto his features. "Who are you?" She laughs arily, bending down to look at him curiously.

"I'm a marine, a strategist if you will, and you Straw Hat Luffy, seem to have worked yourself into a most complex puzzle, good luck getting out of it." She laughs again and sweeps the bottle off the floor, walking towards the door and handing it to a young marine guard who opens it for her. "Drug him again, I'm not taking chances. Lock the door tight."

The man shakes when Luffy narrows his eyes at him but he takes the bottle anyway, nodding and snapping a wavering salute at his superior as she wanders off down the hall. He closes the door and turns to face Luffy, pulling a folded piece of cloth out of his pocket and holding it to the mouth of the bottle as he shakes it a few times. He turns to Luffy and takes a step forward, Luffy strains against the handcuffs again and the metal cuts a new slice into his skin.

 **~4~**

"It's gotta be marines," Nami paces across the deck, Sanji's arranging the sails and Franky is prepping for a Coup de Burst, as soon as Robin finds the ship they're blasting off to intercept. "I saw one earlier, just before the whole market went chaotic, and they have the best motive."

"If they know," Zoro hops down from the observation deck, landing heavily on the grassy deck.

"If they know,"Nami concedes and Zoro nods, straightening.

"I can sense a few marine ships, but that's it, fuzzy presences, we're not close enough that I can pick out Luffy's voice on any of them."

"Great job, moss head, now we just have to storm all of them!" Sanji yells and Zoro tightens his grip on Kietsu, which hasn't left his grip since they started looking for their missing captain.

"Maybe you should try then, curly-cook!" He snaps and the two are head to head as Sanji jumps down to meet him, Nami sighs and continues her pacing.

"He's more likely to be on the ship on the southern side of the island," Robin theorizes, uncrossing her arms as she disperses the phantom body parts she'd sprung up who knows where to gather her information. "The other two ships seem to be moving toward it, though it could just be a rallying point."

"It's our best bet, I say we sail to meet it and if he's not there then we can search the other ships as they meet at the rendezvous, hopefully he'll be on the first one but if not the other two will be coming to us."

"So, no Coup de Burst right now?" Franky clarifies with a yell from below deck, pausing in his loading of a cola barrel into the engine.

"No!" Nami yells back, "We'll save it till we get Luffy back!"

"You got it!" There is a heavy clang and a thud as Franky begins to dismantle the preparations for the Coup de Burst and Nami turns to direct Sanji as he straightens the sails.

 **~4~**

"Sir! A ship flying the colors of the straw hat pirates is approaching off the starboard side!" The cadet snaps a firm salute to his superior and the man nods in recognition, turning to regard the colorful brig sloop as it ambles around the corner of the island, apparently catching a tailwind as it speeds up.

"Duly noted, thank you," He says and taps a number into the den den on his desk, placing a call. A few rings later and the snail composes itself into a mischievous, collected appearance.

"What can I do for you, Sir?" The person on the other end answers smoothly, there's the sound of a heavy door being closed.

"I asked for confirmation of our prisoner, I need it now."

"Identity confirmed," The other end replies "Straw Hat Luffy is in our custody, though he's undergone some strange physical changes. I'm not entirely sure what's caused them. I assure you, he's in no condition to rebel against us."

"Hm, thank you." He hangs up and regards the ship again, bemused. "What a strange group of pirates, chasing after their captain when they must know he's unable to fight with them. I wonder what they hope to accomplish, saving an incapable captain."

 **~4~**

"He's there, I can hear him!" Sanji whoops, one arm wrapped around a knot of rigging, the other shading the sun from his eyes as he peers out toward the marine vessel.

"Really Sanji?" Chopper calls up, hopeful and he cheers when the blond man grins and shoots him a thumbs up.

"Good, we'll have him back in no time!" Nami states, checking the heading once more before turning to the crew.

"I can hear him too," Zoro nods, "He's somewhere below deck."

"Getting below deck will be tricky, they're all gathering on the upper decks." Robin observes, "It seems they're willing to put up a fight."

"Well so are we!" Usopp pumps his fist, determined, and Chopper shouts his agreement, shifting into heavy point and punching the air.

The ship slices through the waves and with Nami navigating they pull in next to the marine ship, a gap of almost ten feet filled with frothing water is jumped first by Zoro and Sanji, then Franky and Robin, and then Chopper and Usopp. Nami stays for another minute more to make sure the ship is stable and Brook is watching everything accordingly before reasserting her grip on her climatact and leaping over the water, conking out a marine with her entry swing.

 **~4~**

He listens, he can't hear a whole lot, but what he can hear is disheartening, gunshots, yelling, people calling attacks. Luffy isn't sure who's fighting but it's interesting to listen to. He thinks they're winning, the ones yelling louder. He winces as there's an explosion, frantic screams, fearful not aggressive. A couple shouts of triumph. A thunder of footsteps stampede above him, echoing through the metal ceiling, he rubs his head against the metal wall, it hurts, but his hands can't reach it to rub way the pain.

Gunshots ricochet again, loud through the wood and when Luffy closes his eyes, feeling dizzy, there's something on the inside of his eyelids.

The guns are cocked, aimed, Luffy can so _easily_ hear the shots being fired, hear the bullets piercing first air and then flesh. It's ridiculous, he knows it's ridiculous, to be this pessimistic, worried, suddenly wrought with anger and fear and sadness.

He had thought he worried about Ace, being off on his own without anyone there that he really knew. But apparently not as much as he would be worrying for his crew.

The firing squad is facing down Zoro and Coby, they're trapped, nothing between them and the bullets that are going to fly in just a few seconds.

So he decides to put something between them; himself.

He stretches his arms back, the swords he'd found hastily tied to his back but they don't matter much if there's no swordsman to give them to. He lets loose, catapulting into the air like he's done so many times, he always feels like the fastest thing within miles when he rockets, but now it feels all too slow…

The abrupt stop has his head spinning; he tries to lurch to his feet, but something is holding him back. Something wrapped tightly around his wrists, he can't feel his arms actually, his legs are jelly, wha…?

He yells, throws himself forward again, he can only see a spinning darkness, feels cold metal beneath his feet, hard metal rings around his wrists. Are they, could they be, hand cuffs? He's never been cuffed before, it's a lot worse than he'd thought it'd be, it makes him feel weak, and these cuffs are really small, they bite into his wrists and he's pretty sure they're bleeding. The bone grinds against the metal through the skin.

He yells and throws himself forward again, light floods, a door is open, footsteps, yelling in response to his. He stops, he knows the voice.

"Luffy? Luffy stop that!" A quickly passing pause "Are you alright? You look a lot better…"

"Zoro? Zoro!" Relief floods into his system and suddenly the cuffs don't seem _quite_ as tight. "Where's Coby? The marines, the jerk captain that was gonna get you killed! There were bullets and I'm bullet _proof_ so I just, I just- what happened? Zoro, Zoro?" The light has stopped being blinding, Luffy's glad, he can see his first nakama, but something is weird, something is really super weird. Zoro doesn't look like… Zoro.

"Oh… I get it." The guy who sounds like Zoro rubs the back of his head with one of his hands, it has a sword in it, it's not one of the ones that Luffy has tied to his back, wait the swords.

"Ah! Your swords!" He spins around but his wrists jerk again and he growls, his knees are suddenly jelly again, he can't hold himself upright and he dips.

"Hey, stop that Luffy!" The man who sounds like Zoro shouts and Luffy swings his head around to glare.

"Shut up! You're not Zoro, Zoro is tied up in a marine yard and he's my first nakama and I have to go protect him!" He breathes for a moment as they stare at one another and then Luffy scuffles a little, turning around and holding his hands out to the guy who looks like Zoro. "Could you get me out?"

"Jeez!" The man who looks like Zoro rubs his face with his hand and then breathes out a sigh. "Okay, okay…" The man who looks like Zoro looks behind him for a second and then brandishes his sword, Luffy notices that there are two more sheathes at his hip. "I'm gonna get you out of here and then I have some explaining to do…"

 **~4~**

"So we made it to the Grand Line! Cool!" Luffy spins around the next corner before Zoro does and on instinct buries a fist in the gut of the marine who was coming the other direction, "Oops, sorry!" The man only grunts and staggers back a half step.

"That's not exactly what I wanted you to take from that, but yeah, that's true." Zoro grits his teeth and steps in front of Luffy, bringing his sword across the marine's chest before the man could sound the alarm.

"Hey, Zoro, I had that guy!" He adjusts his hat and pouts sourly at the man on the ground, a thin sheen of blood seeping into his white uniform.

"Luffy, this is what I meant," Zoro exclaims, pushing the marine to the side with his foot and glancing around to try and gather his bearings. "You have no idea what kind of level we're at, just stick close and I'll get Robin to explain it to you, she has some theories."

"Robin… You said she's on my crew?" Luffy follows half a step behind as Zoro goes charging down one of the out branching hallways.

"Yeah, you have eight other people on your crew other than yourself." He twists a new direction and barrels down that one.

"This is so great…" He murmurs to himself then seems to realize something. "What about Coby?"

"He's a marine, your Grandfather trained him."

"What!? Ji-chan? Poor Coby…"

The two run around a corner and Zoro skids to a stop, a large metal door in front of them.

"Hey," Luffy steps forward, goes to open the door. "Isn't this where we started?" He pulls the door open and peeks inside, indeed his cell is still there, the bars sliced clean through and a mangled set of keys on the floor next to his handcuffs. Zoro pulls him back and starts running the other way.

"Darn, we need to get back to the deck…"

"We're below deck, right?"

"Yeah." Zoro knows that when Luffy asks a question in that tone of voice it's probably a good idea to not answer, but he does it anyway, a mix of dread and eagerness pooling in his stomach.

"I'll get us there!" Luffy wrenches his hand free and throws his arm behind him. "Gum Gum…" He swings upward, his fist plunging into the ceiling with a crunch and a resounding crack as it travels further upward. "Pistol!"

 **~4~**

"Wah!" Usopp misses a step as the deck shakes for a moment, and his shot of _platanus shuriken_ hurtles into the sea of marines just a little to the left of where he'd intended. A similarly stray bullet whizzes past his head and he ducks to the deck to avoid other projectiles that had been fired since he had had a chance to look out for them (or those that he'd been knocked into the path of). Below him is the offending object which had tripped him.

A hand?

He sneaks a quick glance at the people fighting nearby him, all occupied with either arms or a rapid pair of dress shoe clad feet. He hesitates for a moment then drops down to look closer at the hand; the gunpowder in the air is starting to make him a little woozy anyway, this sort of thing warrants investigation. The problem is not so much that there is a hand in the deck, but that he recognizes the hand. The skin that would have been pale but is heavily tanned from years in the sun, a portrait of scars on the knuckles, calluses lining them from every angle,but he knew that they aren't scratchy like some calluses, rather they are worn smooth. Usopp runs his fingers over the knuckles just to see if it's real, the appendage twitches and twists at an unnatural angle to grip his wrist.

He grins and grips back, Luffy's hand, unmistakeably.

The deck beside him bursts into a shower of wood and blades, one of which ends up against his throat. He dares to gulp and grips the hand harder.

"Oh. Usopp." Zoro's voice sounds like music to his ears and he indulges himself in a moment of relief before snarling and pushing away the sword.

"What the heck, Zoro!"

"Yeah yeah yeah," He rolls his eyes, sheathed one sword "You could have died. Just be happy it wasn't Kietsu. Move over would ya?"

"Uh, sure," Usopp shuffles to the side, not even noticing as the wrist stretches a little to keep it's hold on him.

"That idiot," Zoro grumbles and works his own hand around Luffy's. "Let go Usopp." He does and Zoro pries Luffy's fingers forcefully off his wrist, then, without any warning heaving upwards so that the deck shatters again.

"Whoo! Zoro!" Luffy springs from the wreckage and wraps a carefree arm around Zoro's waist to keep himself from falling back down into the hole, which, Usopp realizes, peering down through it, goes down at least five levels (why do marine ships have so much space on them?).

Just as Usopp had predicted when he'd seen the hand, Luffy is now grown up, his normal size, clearly familiar with Zoro and cheerful as ever, no memory lane trips here, thank goodness. His relief must be a little more extreme than he'd thought because Usopp surges forward no more than an instant later and wraps his arms around Luffy, yelling a greeting.

"Oh this is great! Now you can beat up all the marines and we can get out of here before the volcano explodes or something." They hug tightly for a moment and Usopp relishes it, but he notices quickly that something is wrong with Luffy's usual reciprocation of a hug and lets go after a few seconds, nervously scratching his head and surveying the closest marines. Luffy looks gleeful but puzzled. "I guess you don't know who I am?"

"Nope!" Luffy chirps "But you seem real nice, you on my crew?"

"Uh, yeah," Usopp catches Zoro's questioning glance "I figured you didn't know me when you didn't wrap your arms around us a bunch of times, you're way too fond of doing that," he explains crossly.

"Shishishi, sorry, I guess."

"No problem, when you from?"

"He just met me for the first time about an hour ago," Zoro cut in. "Let's settle this later, can you get him back on the Sunny, no way can he handle this horde."

"Hey!" Luffy objects but Usopp bulldozes his exclamation with his own sentence.

"Sure, sure, leave the Luffy corralling to me, thanks a lot Zoro!" Usopp complains. Taking Luffy across this deck is _asking_ to get them both killed. Between Luffy's bounty head and his lack of knowledge about how to keep said head attached to his neck the only person truly suited to the job is Zoro, but he'd probably get lost anyhow...

"You want me to leave you here? Without someone to escort you?" Zoro cuts him a sharp edged glare and his singular eye glints in the red light reflected off his wet sword. Usopp gulps and pastes on a smile.

"Right this way Luffy-sama!"

Luffy laughed and told him not to call him that even as he hooks onto his arm and pulls them both into the turmoil, leaving Zoro behind to forge a path back to the Sunny, which is sailing along the port side of the marine vessel.

"Zoro!" Nami darts in next to him and he pulls his sword across the two marines just steps behind her. "Thanks, where were you?"

"Looking for Luffy." He answers, defending her careless behind until she rams her fist into his head.

"Like heck, you just got lost!" She yells and he whips back around to face her.

"No! I found him too!"

"No, really?" She gasps, swinging her clima tact around to clock a line of marines on their heads. "He's okay right?"

"Yeah, older too."

"How old?"

"Seventeen."

"No way!" She shrieks, whipping around as though she is expecting him to be there, Zoro cuts into a few marines trying to take it as an opening. "So he knows us?"

"He knows me. Has for about an hour."

"Aw, so close," She growls, turning back around. "When he starts recognizing us things are going to get a lot easier."

"Yeah." He grunts again, striking out at a marine who's striking at Nami's back, jerk. He's not entirely sure it's true though, about it getting easier once he recognizes them. They'll understand things better, but by the way had Luffy looked at him when he cut open the cell door, panicked and harried and determined, that isn't necessarily a good thing. No need to say as much, they'll figure it out. They will.

 **~4~**


	6. Can't I just beat them up?

The trip across the deck is not without incident, though more with just-barely averted incidents than actual incidents. Usopp spends the walk babbling things to keep Luffy on task and pushing him down as possibly sea stone bullets whiz just overhead, Luffy keeps spouting proudly that he's immune to bullets and that Usopp doesn't need to bother. Usopp is a bit busy to explain so he just keeps on the track of leading his wayward captain across the deck.

And then he loses him.

It's a classic Luffy move, his dodge doubling as an attack, ducking low beneath an oncoming sword blade he uses the momentum to lunge forward into his attacker, his haki clad attacker who immediately sends Luffy hurtling backwards into the fray.

"Noooo!" Usopp screeches, clapping his hands to the side of his face. "Luffy, you're gonna diiiiiie" and then he dives back in himself, wading anxiously through marines in search of the bubbly straw hatted man who is so colorful and _yet always_ manages to vanish into a crowd like this. "Luffy!" He calls, but his voice is swallowed and outdone by all the voices yelling with him, one in particular.

"ZOOOOORROOOOOO." Previously Usopp hadn't thought his Captain could sound that desperate, over the last two days he's been proven very wrong.

Across the deck a number of marines have converged upon the green haired swordsman, trapping him beneath a web of swords and white uniformed bodies. Luffy should know that a pile up is not nearly enough to put Zoro in any semblance of danger, but apparently he doesn't.

 **~4~**

That blade. That horrible black blade that had done nothing but bring Zoro shame is sweeping forward, Luffy can see it in slow motion despite the fact that Johnny and Yosaku who are next to him probably can't see it at all for all of its speed.

Still, Luffy sees, watches, horror stricken as it bites smoothly into Zoro's chest, cleaves through flesh and puts a tear in skin, a long smooth rip, like a popped seam. There isn't supposed to be seams in the human body. If Zoro survives this then there will be a seam where there is now a rip.

Time lapses, Zoro's image overlays with someone else, someone similar, Luffy feels his cry leave his mouth before he can shut it away. That's enough watching, his swordsman is dying, his crew mate needs him.

He springs forward, dodging a suddenly present flock of marines and pushing off some weird guy's head. He flies over top of someone with Usopp's nose, a girl with hair that looks like Nami, but he only has eyes for where he'd last seen the guy with three swords and green hair. Zoro.

He tears into them from above, punching and kicking and biting as best as he can, invulnerable as the marines are attacked from beneath as well. Zoro pulls himself out first, throwing marines off in a massive outward swing, they fall off him in batches, and soon enough Luffy falls in, still kicking his best to get to Zoro.

"What the- Luffy!"

"Zoro!" He cries, dropping to his feet and swinging his leg out to trip all the surrounding marines off their feet. He wraps his arms around Zoro's midsection, it is Zoro, for sure, he decides, even if he is a little bigger and taller and there is this big scar across his chest, he feels the same, he smells the same, he sounds like Zoro should. He glances up at Zoro's face but Zoro isn't focusing on him, instead concentrating on pulling the seemingly easy motions from his blades, slicing away the enemies as they approach. "Zoro… I'm really glad you're okay…" he sniffles and then swipes a hand across his face, pushing the tears away as he offers him a bouncy grin.

"Why wouldn't I be okay, Captain?"

"'Cause of Mihawk," Luffy answers quietly, Zoro stiffens beneath him. "Zoro, where'd everything go? It was really weird. One second you're fighting Mihawk but now all these marines are around."

"A lot of stuff happened."

"I didn't see any of it."

"Alright, Luffy." Zoro shrugs the boy off his shoulder and Luffy catches his footing on what he realizes are slippery deck boards. "There's been some stuff going on that I'm gonna explain, me and Usopp and Nami and the curly cook…"

"Sanji?" Luffy asks, slightly excited, peering over the closest marines to look for the blond man.

"Yeah, him, get back here." Zoro wraps a hand around Luffy's arm and pulls him closer again. "Darn it, why do I have to keep doing this?"

"Zoro?"

"Ok, we're all gonna explain it to you if you can get the two of us to that big yellow and red ship with our jolly roger on the sail everything is going to start making a lot more sense, okay?"

"Mmm, with my rocket?" Luffy looks slightly confused, but not a bit hesitant, just questioning, because Zoro has never (even in the time that Luffy doesn't remember knowing him) enjoyed nor asked for Luffy's rocket (except that one time in Navarone, but he hadn't asked for a rocket so much as for Luffy to get everyone aboard).

Zoro cringes and grits his teeth.

"Yes." He sighs and Luffy can't stop the involuntary grin.

"Okay!" Luffy wraps an arm around Zoro's waist, and in turn Zoro clears a path through the white uniforms with a long swipe of his blade, and Luffy picks the Sunny out immediately. "Oh, there it is!" He chirps and throws his free arm forward, winding it around the railing of the Sunny and pulling the both of them towards it, the few marines remaining being knocked casually to the side like bowling pins making way for the frightening brightly colored ball barreling down the lane.

The familiar _twang_ of Luffy's arms snapping back into their correct shape sounds next to Zoro's ear and he sets his feet down on a comforting grassy deck, straightening as Luffy releases him, pushing himself off the ground that Luffy had 'accidently' plummeted them to. He was too used to uneven landings to be at much of a stall.

"This is a really cool ship!" Luffy is bouncing around, looking at everything and laughing loudly in a way that Zoro now recognizes as his favorite way of hiding relief.

"It is," He grunts and hauls himself up the stairs, towards the helm so he can set up for a Coup de Burst. He's not willing to wait a second longer than is absolutely necessary.

"Zoro-san!" Brook calls cheerfully, leaning out of the observation room. "Are we getting ready to leave? Where is Luffy-san?"

"Is that a _skeleton?"_ Zoro ignores them as Brook handles introductions and happily exclaims that Luffy looks much better than before and Luffy asks in a rushed tone if Brook poops.

"Shoot, which way did Nami say we were gonna sail once we were all aboard?" He calls and Brook scolds him for trying to decipher directions while Luffy bounces to the railing and peers over the space between the marine ship and Sunny.

Unfortunately he's not the only one looking.

"Hey, who's tha- Whoa!" At first it's only two and Zoro thinks Luffy can probably do fine on his own anyway, but then it's six and then ten and frankly, where there's one the rest tend to swarm, so it's only a few seconds before there's a mass exodus of white uniformed ants leaping the gap between the boats and start swinging swords and gun barrels.

Zoro curses and forgets about the direction someone is supposed to set the Sunny facing.

 **~4~**

Luffy moves lithely, ducking and weaving because he found out pretty quickly that his punch isn't enough to floor them, which disappoints him, a lot, actually. He laughs in their faces and cracks jokes and attacks when he can but he can tell he's outmatched, which is a problem 'cause they're _just marines,_ and if he can't handle them then what the _heck_ is happening to his crew?

Zoro was up there a second ago, but now the space behind the helm is empty and the skeleton isn't hanging out of the window anymore. So maybe they're fighting too, Zoro was acting weird, but not un-Zoro-ish, it was confusing. He hopes it wasn't gonna make his head hurt anymore, that Zoro could explain it well. Or maybe he should just call it a mystery and be done with it. Maybe, but this seems kind of important.

At one point or another there are more people, not ants bleached of personality but colorful people who swing in and out of the fight around him and give him hopeful looks and yell funny things.

"Get off my SUPER ship!" A big clunky one says, swinging metal red arms that are the widths of barrels, Luffy has to stop and breathe for a second after he sees him, catch his breath as the shock of something so cool washes over him.

"HiYA!" A fuzzy thing yells as he jumps in and pummels a marine bearing down on Luffy's back. "Luffy! Are you alright? How do you feel? Are you bleeding?" He is, from a small cut from a sword on the back of his calf. It stings, but he's had way worse. "You look good, are you good?"

"I'm good!" He says breathlessly, because he hasn't stopped moving for a long while and they're still surrounded. "You're cool, what are you?" The fuzzy thing looks at him, a little sad and chops at another oncoming opponent.

"Don't worry about it. Don't fall off, okay?"

He agrees, kinda confused, but the fuzzy thing is gone anyway, brown and pink disappearing into the white.

He smells flowers and all the closest marines turn into spiders that choke themselves. He blinks as the row of marines behind the one just felled stares back at him, equally surprised. "Excuse me for intruding on your fight, Captain." He turns and stares blankly at the woman standing there with her arms crossed.

"Who are you?" He asks, cause the marines are already preoccupied with another set of spider arms. She smiles and he kinda wants to punch her cause she's getting in the way (though she _did_ apologize), but she seems nice anyway, so he probably shouldn't.

"My name is Nico Robin," She introduces herself and he nods like that changes things. A marine rises from the deck and raises his sword behind her, but before he or she can do anything about it, there's a black shoe twisting it's heel into the marine's face and a long leg attached to it.

"Crappy cadet," the man kicks the body out of the way as he speaks, "You thought you could attack the most beautiful Robin~chan?" He turns and kneels before Robin, spreading his arms like he expects a hug. "You are safe now, my beloved!"

" _Sanji?"_ Luffy's eyes bug out of his head as he realizes he _knows_ the man. The blond offers him a apathetic glance, then sniffs.

"You look better,"

"Better than what?" He snaps, "I thought you had to stay with the old man? What about that Don Krieg jerk?" He grounds his fist into his palm. "I was gonna take care of him, but… Hey, why's your face backwards?"

" _My face isn't backwards!"_ He yells and makes an angry face, which makes Luffy laugh before he points to his own eyebrow.

"But your eyebrow is supposed to go _up!"_ He pulls his rubber skin into the right shape. "And your's goes _down_! Plus your hair is on the wrong side!"

" _I can change how I do my hair, crap captain!_ " Luffy laughs again but then stops to think for a second about what he'd said, Robin is wiping out marines as they approach so he's taking advantage of the seconds to breathe.

"Sanji-bro! Roll the sail up!" A voice calls, it sounds like the big clunky one from before, though he looks even cooler now, standing up there by the helm, he's making the ship lurch as he spins it.

"Why should I?" Sanji argues, turning back to Robin as he speaks. "I'm protecting _Robin~cha-"_

" _Robin! Heeeeelp!"_

"If you'll excuse me, Sanji." She smiles and he melts as she jumps out of the way of an oncoming marine and steps over him, moving through the fight like she's been living on terrain that moves her whole life.

"Anything you need! My radian-"

" _Sanji! The sails!"_ The clunky one barks.

"I'm going!" He yells "Keep your speedo on, you perv!"

"Aw, super thanks bro!"

" _Shut up!"_

Luffy is suddenly lost, both Robin and Sanji are gone, he thinks he heard Usopp somewhere in there, and Sanji had called him Captain. He's getting the distinct feeling that he's missing something, but he feels that way a lot, and it usually doesn't matter, so he brushes it aside in favor of punching the next marine who runs at him in the face, he's happy 'cause it looks like it hurts.

The fight goes on like this, he makes his way upward, there's more color by the helm, more likeliness of running into one of the fun people he had seen floating around, one of his nakama, though he kind of misses the grass. Apparently only the lower deck has grass. It's going well, more or less, until a shriek cuts through the chaos. There have been a lot of shrieks, the difference is Luffy _knows_ this one.

He spins around and searches, new marines have flooded in to replace those who've fallen and Luffy growls as a pressure he recognizes as instinctual urgency presses against the inside of his skull.

A flash of orange and he ducks toward it, underneath a marine's raised arm. She's on her knees, clutching her shoulder, a wicked glare in her eye as she stares down a sneering marine with a sword in his hand. Luffy yells, running at him, keen on defending his crew mate, cause Nami may look different, and she may have just stolen Merry, but she's his navigator and he decided that a while ago.

His vision tunnels for an instant as the world spirals away, leaving Nami. For a second his mind swims and then the image flashes bright, shifting in a split second. The marines aren't there anymore, just townspeople, most of them with guns and rakes and insubstantial weaponry that won't do crap against the enemy they're marching against. He knows this, because Nami is strong and she'd fallen to the same person long ago. He feels some twisted sense of shame, a pulsing remorse. _This,_ this crushing sadness she felt, this is his fault.

Luffy steps forward, then back a step, Nami's right, he's only caused problems for her. In the end, he'd made this a lot worse than it needed to be, that was stupid of him. _I'll make it better, I'll beat him up really well._ He decides, and steps forward again, still upset with himself, because he should be a better captain than this, then letting his crewmates suffer when he knew something was wrong.

She's stabbing herself, and he cringes involuntarily, knowing that he is to blame. Sure, Arlong. But Arlong had meant to do that, Arlong had been there for who knows how long, but he, Luffy, was the one that made her feel like she had to do something other than survive and complete what she'd decided to do. He should have fixed this sooner, the moment he figured out she was hurting, he should have made it better, instead of trying to let her figure it out. _Lesson learned._ He tells himself, but with each jerking rear of her arm his gut twists with the knowledge that he could have prevented this particular moment of pain. So he stops it, grabs her arm, and the moment she twists her head to stare up at him with hatred and fear she hadn't meant to angle at him (but which he suddenly felt he deserved) he had to take a moment to breathe before he could speak. He wasn't fast enough, so she spoke.

And the world lurches, skips over itself and then melts away, leaving Luffy lilting to the side and subsequently falling to deck boards. Deck boards. When did he get on a ship?

 **~5~**

"Who the _heck_ set off a coup de burst without me giving a heading?" Nami shrieks, supporting herself with her clima tact and holding her hand to her nicked shoulder as she stands and then repurposing it as a club when Sanji runs to her with apologies. The deck is covered in marines, all pressed against the ground as Sunny soars over the ocean, just reaching the peak of the flight. "Which way are we going?" She stomps over to the railing and wraps an arm around the railing as she compares the log pose to the seascape, the island is just to the side of them, thankfully not in their path, and they don't seem to be going too far away… "And would someone get rid of these marines!" She kicks away one that has crawled over and grabbed her ankle, she hisses testily at him. "I live with a bunch of imbeciles…"

She turns back to the ocean as Franky reads her a few coordinates that he calculated and Sanji apologizes from somewhere in between arguing with Zoro over something stupid.

There's a solid sounding grunt and a marine goes flying over the railing next to Nami, she sniffs and rechecks their heading.

"Nami!" Luffy says from somewhere behind her and she hums in response, focusing on the wind trajectory. "Nami!" Luffy repeats, closer. She sighs, turning around to meet him.

He smashes into her and wraps her up in his rubber arms, locking her firmly against him, as she shrieks in disbelief.

"Let go, you idiot! I'm working!" She pushes against him and he reluctantly lets go, stepping back as she establishes a safe distance between them. "What are you do- Luffy?"

"Nothing," He grumbles, scrubbing furiously at his eyes, stumbling backwards and tripping over a prone marine. He yelps and tumbles to the ground, Nami steps tentatively closer.

"Luffy, are you crying?" The others are occupied dropping marines off the sides of the ship and preparing to land back in the ocean, they've started descent now. Luffy looks up at her with a wobbly grin balanced on his face and shakes his head.

"No! I'm alright, I'm fine, but, but Nami, what about you?" His smile melts away like an ice cube on hot pavement and he pushes himself to his feet, a concerned frown marring his features.

"Um- all good here," She evades, "What are you upset about…" She trails as she notices Luffy's attention shifting. " Luffy are listening?"

"Nami, what happened to your arm?" She glances at her arm, but it's just the scratch that one marine gave her. Jerk.

"Nothing too bad. I feel just fine."

"But, just a second ago, you had a knife…" He flaps his hands in an effort to explain and then drops them to his side, looking at her helplessly. Nami's eyes travel across his figure, trying to estimate what Luffy could be talking about. She'd forgotten for a moment that just because he was older again didn't mean that he was all caught up. The X scar is absent, she'd have been able to see the tips peeking just over the neck-line of his shirt, and he was asking her about a knife… Nami pales, her hand flying to her uninjured shoulder and rubbing over her tattoo, the skin beneath rough with scar tissue. She looks up at him and his concern only seems to deepen.

"I'm gonna take care of it for you," He nods, resolute, rubbing one of his shoulders as he rolls it in the joint, stretching. "I know you don't want me around, but you're my navigator, and I should have solved this problem forever ago!" He turns and stomps over the carpet of marines toward the railing. Nami lets out a short string of curses and steps quickly in front of him, putting her hands on his chest.

"No no no! It's alright Luffy, um… I need to explain some things…" She sighs and fumbles with her thoughts, looking for the best way to derail her captain's current thought process. Luffy frowns at her, frustration sweeping across his face.

"I know you just want me to leave, but I'm not going to leave you here." He says, a note of his rock hard finality coloring his tone. "I should've fixed this already, let me fix it now. Come on, just ask, please, Nami?" He's tense with anger and bordering on desperation. Nami wouldn't have recognized it back then, but now she hears the note of raw emotion loud in his tone. He's also a little too close for comfort.

It's nice to have him big enough to recognize, it makes things just a little more normal. She raises a fist and floors him with a swift knock to the head, grinding her teeth as the typical irritation at his stubbornness wells up over the warmth his concern left in her.

"Idiot, would you just listen?" She sighs and watches him grovel theatrically for a moment. "I need to explain some things." She repeats "I'm not pushing you away." He twists his head to look up at her from an unnatural angle and pouts. She rolls her eyes and taps his head lightly with the toe of her shoe. "Could you just stay there? Please?"

He hesitates, nods.

Nami turns to bark an order, but the moment she is about to speak the ship lurches as it splashes down into the ocean, she crumples and Luffy squirms so that he's under her, providing a rubber cushion. It's unusually thoughtful of him. She pushes herself up to yell again but someone was better prepared for the landing than her, a marine soldier with a wicked long blade. He growls at her, sneering and raises the blade to poke at her chin. "You're trying to run off with my promotion, girlie. And that's not very fair, not when I caught it with my own two hands."

"Are you talking about my captain?" She hisses back, taken aback and clenching her fists when his smirk widens and he nods. "Listen, creep, it's a waste to turn him in for a promotion, he's worth a heck of a lot more than that." She snatches up her climatact and swings it at his head, breaking off the end and waving it at the sky to conjure some lightning, the humidity is about right for an easy strike. Before she can finish her attack Luffy pushes her off him and charges at the burly marine who is still smirking. He yells, furious and knocks him aside with a punch to the face, but he's back up and swinging hands with brass knuckles at Luffy's chin before he knows what's happening. The impact makes a loud smack and Luffy rears back, then twists upward to nail a kick into his gut. Nami fumbles with her climatact, swirling together a small storm and calling down the strike to floor the marine before he manages to floor Luffy; a beat passes, the lightning flashes, Luffy strikes forward again. The marine slumps down, crackling with electricity and a thin trail of blood trickling from a cut on his lip. Luffy is breathing harder but he looks much more at ease, calmer, to a certain degree. He turns and regards her carefully, looking at her climatact.

"What was that light? Nami?" She rubs her nose carefully, trying to think this through before she starts to explain it to him, but honestly, it's just as muddled in her mind as it will be once she tells it to Luffy.

"Alright Luffy, you really want to know?" A stiff nod. "We're not on Cocoyashi anymore, heck you're not actually seventeen anymore! It's... complicated, but the basic idea is that a day or so ago you shrunk down to the age of seven and we've been winging it from there. Welcome to the Grand Line!" She spreads her arms and tries to smile without betraying her own worry but it probably doesn't matter, because Luffy's too lost and confused to notice it anyway.

"But, Arlong..."

"Luffy! You're bleeding! You told me you were okay!" Chopper flies across the deck and forces his captain onto the ground as he runs a wet cloth down the back of his calf and begins wrapping it tightly in bandages, scolding all the while. "You know better than to leave it bleeding if you can help it, it was just a stupid marine battle, not anything important, I could have had it fixed up in no time and it wouldn't have been a problem for anyone! You _always_ leave your injuries until the end and if you _can_ stop you really _should_."

"If he'd stopped you'd have bandaged it, and then it'd be hard to move." Zoro saunters up behind him, adorned himself with a few mummified limbs.

"That's the point! You're not _supposed_ to move when you're injured, and - don't take them off!" Chopper yelps as he turns and finds Zoro unraveling a few of his own bandages.

Luffy lifts his leg and inspects the bandage carefully, he looks perplexed, as it'd been treated in less than a minute and he's not really sure who it was that did it or why Zoro has suddenly gained a long scar over his eye and Nami was telling him stuff that didn't make any sense. He sets his leg down and looks up at her, she gives him a hapless smile and a shrug.

"Two years in the future," She repeats, than points. "Zoro and Chopper; Chopper's your doctor." Chopper turns around when she says his name and his little blue nose wiggles, his narrows his eye at Luffy and then gasps.

"Oh! You're missing your scar!"

Luffy frowns and rubs the scar under his eye, it's still there, he can feel the little ridges.

"He means the one you got in the last two years," Nami explains, then turns to Chopper. "He doesn't know you yet, he just lapsed again, we were back on my home island and he beat someone up for me."

"Arlong," Zoro grunts and Nami nods, Luffy stares at them for a moment, trying to make the piece fit together.

"So I got him?" He asks, "You're alright?" Nami nods, looking relieved that he's finally getting something. He considers for another moment, a flush washing over his cheeks as he continues to ponder.

"I don't get it, just tell me where that creep is already!"

Nami groans.

 **~5~**

"Why not we just find some random fishman to beat up? It's not like he knows what that crooked-nosed felon looks like," Sanji waves his cigarette for emphasis as he talks and the smoke trails through the air on long curving lines.

"Because that's stupid," Nami leans back against the wall, sighing. "Granted, he's stupid too."

"This is great! Look at all the fish! Think of all the sushi!" Luffy gushes, happily cooped up in the Suny's aquarium lounge, staring at all the fish that drift by. It seems Luffy is captivated by the aquarium at any age. "Sanji make sushi!"

"Shut up! I'll make it later, I just fed you a plate of sandwiches!" Sanji barks in return and sucks greedily through the ash covered filter, sating his desire to pummel his captain with the next most attractive option, a good long smoke.

"But I feel like eating fish..." Luffy grumbles but sighs and turns around, crossing his arms and leaning his back against the glass.

"Okay, I need a little distance!" Nami throws up her hands, "He wasn't like this the first time around!"

"Previously, he wasn't kept away from the object of his anger. Correct?" Robin opens the door and hands Sanji a piece of paper, "The boys are making requests for lunch." She explains at his quizzical look.

"Argh!" He throws his hands in the air, though keeps the list firmly within his grasp, "You'd think they'd all been starving for weeks but I know they're not because I just made breakfast for them _Three. Hours. Ago._ " He grumbles a few curses and stalks out of the room, Robin waves at Luffy as he looks up at her. Nami rubs her nose.

"Okay Luffy," She turns, hands held out, placating. "I'm gonna step out for a minute, alright? Just three minutes, and I'll be right back." He nods, slow, looking a little confused and Nami turns away with a muttered 'I'm gonna regret this'. Robin goes to follow her out the door, but stops, turning back to Luffy. "Would you like a cup of tea, captain? It might help you calm down a little." Luffy frowns and shakes his head.

"I don't wanna be calm! I wanna beat up the jerk that hurt Nami! You guys are being weird!"

"No tea then," Robin smiles benignly and follows Nami out the door.

"No tea," Luffy repeats, shaking his head some more, although it's less of a rejection now and more of an effort to get a sudden fog out of his head.

His senses turn over in an instant, swapping, flipping, shifting to relay a new message to his body, his brain jumps the track, his train of thought hurtling into oblivion as a new locomotive begins to puff, he slumps, feels his hands curl, feels the world _snap._

 **~5~**

The tea is not nice. He repeats this in his head, over and over and over and over. The tea is the most disgusting thing he's tasted in years, the tea makes him want to smash his cup and stalk off to Sanji so he can get the taste out of his mouth. It makes him want to spit it all out and punch the person who gave it to him in his face.

Nothing he thinks makes any sense to his body. Everytime he considers setting down the cup his hand merely trembles, the thought of punching the girl in front of him makes his mouth bend into a discontent frown, his breathing remains even as his mind runs itself breathless trying to lift a finger in protest.

And behind him the wax is falling, a white haze drifting over the clearing, over the _people standing there._ And they had been calling for him, but their voices had just echoed around his head, he couldn't respond, just endlessly, "This tea is nice…" He mumbles this, endlessly. There are no longer other voices, none other than his own. And the girl sitting across from him is sipping at her own tea, eyes smiling at him from below the brim of her hat. Tireless.

And suddenly it's not, suddenly he's doing what he's wanted to do for what seems like an eternity. He's up on his feet, turning, reaching, he's going to _break that thing till it's nothing but a puddle of wax on the ground and he'll never have to look at it ever-_

It's gone, it's all gone. More importantly, they're gone.

"Where'd they go?" He asks, no one, just himself, the room is empty. He can feel his blood rushing through his veins, can hear it boiling behind his ears. "Where did they put them?" His gaze passes over his surroundings, the room is… underwater? The walls are made of glass, some are, anyway. He's standing, just in front of a lounge chair that rings the room.

It doesn't matter. He disregards these thoughts and swings around, finding the door and crossing the room at a sprint to burst through. The door bangs into someone's arm and they take a step back, looking up at him with a semi-surprised expression.

"Oh, dear, Luffy?"

"You!" He bellows, he feels a little woozy, his nakama, his nakama, they were right behind him a second ago, they'd been dying, and he'd done nothing. He doesn't understand much of what is happening, but this person, he knows, she is close (close enough) to the big boss that ordered everything that has gone wrong so far. He throws himself onto her, thrusts his elbow onto her neck as she falls back onto the wall and crosses her arms, him close on top of her, seething. "This is _your_ fault," _No, it's yours._ Something nasty in his head snarls; he ignores it, channeling the spite to Ms. All Sunday whom he holds almost intimately as an object of blame. "And you didn't even do a thing for yourself! What kind of honor is that? Ordering someone else to do your dirty work? Where are they?" She shakes her head marginally, tensing under his hold and he tightens it in response.

"Luffy. Let go." Her voice says, but she's not speaking, he's inches away, she hasn't said a thing. He whips his head around, she's there too, leaning against the railing of what he now realizes is a ship. He's on a ship, he's not even on the same _island._ Her double opens her eyes, stares at him straight, She's still tense in his hold but her double looks completely relaxed across the small margin of space between them. "Don't do something you'll regret."

" I wouldn't have any regrets for beating you up." He bites out.

"Luffy! Let Robin go!"

"Nami?" He spins the other way, searching for the source of her voice.

"Clutch!" Ms. All Sunday calls and Luffy feels skin slide against his arms, hands grip his ankles in iron grips and jerk them behind him, up, twisting him into a shape he'd never managed on his own.

"HEY!" He struggles, but there are more limbs then should be present, since in the glimpses he grasped of his surroundings as he thrashed within the holds he saw not several people but only two. Ms. All Sunday and a person that had to be Nami.

"Robin, are you okay?"

"WHAT THE HECK!" Luffy shrieks as Nami hugs Robin and completely ignores his pretzel-esque position on the floor. He twists himself around, strains at the hands gripping his wrists and stretches his neck so he can bite the arms tying his ankles together. "Let me GO!"

"Luffy, calm down!" Nami demands, but Luffy is rather fed up with taking orders right now. " _Have some tea._ " she'd said. " _Whatever you do, don't save us."_ Vivi had yelled. This is why he doesn't follow orders.

"No!" He grunts, twisting his arms free only for them to be recaptured, leaving practically hogtied. "Darn it! Where's Zoro? Vivi?"

"Vivi," Ms. All Sunday nods. "I suppose that explains things." He sneers at her.

"And Zoro… Oh, Luffy!" Nami snaps her fingers. "Was there a guy with a big three on his head, and wax figures?"

" _You_ were the wax figures!" He moans, stilling momentarily, deck boards pressing into his face while a disembodied hand cheerily pokes at his cheek. "You and Zoro and Vivi. And Usopp was getting chased by the explosive guy and I was sitting there drinking _tea."_ He shudders and twists his neck to look up at her, forlornly. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Her eyes soften "We're all fine."

"Good," He breathes, shuts his eyes for a moment. Then he whips himself around again, attempting to break the hold. "Now let me go! Dirty hat stealer!"

"Do you really perceive me as so horrible even though your friends are alright?" Ms. All Sunday smiles serenely, clearly amused.

"Yeah! You're a hat stealer!" Luffy repeats vehemently "And you killed that eight guy, and you're after Vivi's country!"

"Oh my gosh, enough of this!" Nami's fist sends Luffy's vision spinning and he whines at her.

"But Nami, you _said_ Baroque Works were bad guys!"

"Well Robin's not!" She scolds.

"How interesting, you haven't hit him much these past few days." Ms. All Sunday muses.

"Yeah, well, he's a lot more punchable when he's older and not some cute kid blubbering all over the place."

Luffy freezes in his escape attempts, twists vainly to try and look at the two women. "What did you say? Nami, what was that?"

"I said you're a crybaby of an accident prone little rubber kid that is too adorable for me to hit without feeling bad." Nami snaps and Ms. All Sunday smiles demurely beside her.

"I suppose you deserve an explanation, Captain-san."

Luffy's breath stalls as the two women stare down at him, both cheery and fond. A crybaby, a captain. He sucks in a deep breath, holds it as he thinks for a moment. He looks them straight in the eye and yells because he's confused and frustrated and yelling usually works out okay.

" _WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?"_

 **~5~**

"So…" Luffy stands at the head of the table, pacing in front of the Straw hat's gathered around the kitchen table, stereotypically rubbing his chin. "I shrunk a bunch and we've actually been sailing for two years and you, you, you, and you are all on my crew now." He points to the people he doesn't recognize, Chopper, Brook, Franky and Robin. He speaks to himself for a moment, sums it up in the way his head will most likely understand, then spins around and points to Nami. "And that's why your hair is longer?!" The table groans collectively and Robin smile encouragingly as Nami rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, essentially." She sweat drops, her head resting on her elbows. "It's also why when Zoro get's back to the ship you're gonna see he has a scar over one eye, and Usopp is buff."

"Cool," Luffy nods, sitting down, wiping some sweat off his forehead. "My head hurts now."

"Here," Chopper hands him a leg of meat that Sanji had prepared in advance and Luffy digs into it with a slurred thanks.

"Your memories don't seem to be returning randomly." Robin remarks "The shifts are almost certainly affected by your surroundings, and the points at which you regain memories until seem to all be stressful or painful moments."

"Like what?" Luffy asks as he swallows the current mouthful, his eyes skitter over his crew, everyone is there but Zoro and Usopp, Nami said they went scouting or something, marines or whatever.

"Mihawk and the Marimo." Sanji says simply, setting a refill of the last plate in front of him as Luffy finishes the first serving.

"Arlong Park." Robin smiles.

"Um, uh, Sabo." Chopper scuffs a hoof on the floor and tugs his hat down over his eyes. Luffy stops eating and chews quietly for a moment, his jaw working.

"Sabo." He repeats harshly.

Chopper sniffles for a moment then launches forward, almost knocking Luffy out of the chair as he assaults his chest with apologies and Luffy can only stare for a moment before he wraps his arms firmly around the blubbering doctor and holds him tightly, smooshing his face into the soft fuzz of the reindeer's hat. It's cool against his face, he suddenly realizes he's kind of hot.

"You're on my crew now, don't tell me I brought a big wimp aboard." He scolds.

"HEY!" Chopper rears back but Luffy holds him close and he schools his expression. "I mean, no. I'm not a wimp, I've got a devil fruit, you think my transformations are cool…"

"Transformations?" Luffy repeats, he jerks his head up, eyes alight with enthusiasm. "You can transform?"

"Yeah, but listen Luffy, I'm apologizing!"

"But I don't get what you're apologizing for, so stop." Luffy says. Chopper chews on his lip and nods. "I'm not upset that you guys know about Sabo; he's important to me." He hums, leans back in the chair and his eyes wander along the ceiling. "Ace, if you know about Sabo then you know about Ace, always called me a crybaby and he was right, especially after Sabo died..." Franky bursts into motion, along with Sanji and Brook.

"He's _dead?"_ Franky bawls, suddenly the largest and loudest thing in the room.

"What about those crappy noble parents who flippin kidnapped him? What kind of crappy protection did they give him?" Sanji gushes in some hybrid of righteous anger and desperation, almost equally loud.

"Nooooo, the tragic tale! The trio turned to a sol-" Brook chokes as Nami punches him to keep the words out of his mouth. "duet!" Solo, he'd almost said. They don't need that now.

Luffy clutches at Chopper in surprise and he snuggles closer in response. Luffy looks carefully between them, his face folding into confusion.

"I thought you said you knew about Sabo?" He asks, quizzically, the hint of defense in his tone.

"We knew that he got brought back to his noble parents, we assumed he stayed there." Robin's frown is deeper than her facial expressions typically went.

"Sabo wasn't the kind of guy that would stay in a cage," Luffy says bitterly "He set sail on his own, somebody shot his ship down because he was flying the pirate flag." His voice drops to a hush but he straightens, meeting each of their worried gazes.

"Despite the nature of this news it does bring about a most interesting development." Robin speaks calmly into the silence (would be silence if Franky could stop crying) "So far you've seemed to gravitate to the next most tragic point in your life. The event with Shanks'-"

"Oh, that too?" Luffy winces.

"Sabo's kidnapping, Zoro mentioned a short stint about Coby and a firing squad, then Zoro's loss to Mihawk, then Nami's crisis with Arlong, and now, this would be Little Garden, correct?"

Luffy nods and Nami explains.

"Miss Goldenweek used her colors trap on Luffy, first black, then a bunch of others and she really got him with green. He was sitting there drinking tea while the wax guy turned us into statues!" Nami fumes and Luffy tilts his head down in shame, gritting his teeth.

"Miss Goldenweek is indeed a marvelous match for Luffy," Robin murmurs then refocuses, tracing circles into the table top. "Each of these are a moment of tension for you, but there were others that we missed, aren't there?" Luffy nods again. "It seems that the jumps in memory occur around points when you're very worried about somebody else, like Shanks, Sabo, or Zoro. But I wonder why you wouldn't stop at times like Sabo's death, certainly you were mournful." Luffy sighs and then smiles weakly.

"It made me wanna tear down the whole city," He admits. "But Ace wouldn't help me cause he got tied to a tree."

Ignoring this peculiar comment, Robin continues.

"Nevertheless, with this information, perhaps we can predict where the next point will be. Where did you land after Little Garden?"

"My island!" Chopper pipes up, wriggling around in Luffy's hug. "Drum. Nami was sick so they took a detour."

"Wha! Nami's sick?" Luffy gasps, then considers her for a moment. "You don't look sick."

"Chopper fixed it," Nami explains his confusion away, sorta. "Luffy and Sanji carried me up the mountain to get to the only doctor around, this old witch who charged a lot more then she was worth."

"Doctorine is the best doctor on the Grand Line," Chopper pipes up, protecting his mentor with an indignant scowl. "And she isn't _that_ old."

"Yeah, only in her 'young, too young, hundred thirties'" Nami quotes with her fingers in the air and Chopper shrugs bashfully.

"Probably a tense point there," Robin nods "Then Alabasta."

"Wait wait wait wait!" Luffy yelps "I don't wanna hear this, it's the future! It'll spoil all my adventures! I don't wanna go on a boring adventure!"

"Then get outside," Nami points to the door and then, offhandedly "Take Brook with you, he'll scream loudest if you both fall overboard." Luffy jumps up and cheers, depositing Chopper on the chair and pulling a suddenly animate Brook out the door. "You're my musician right? I finally have a musician, play me something!"

"Yohoho! That's true, Luffy-san, what did you have in mind?"

The conversation picks up again in the wake of Luffy's escape.

"Um, Alabasta… we met up with Ace, and then we had to hike through the desert and then we got split up after Rainbase." Nami supplies.

"After that Luffy fought Crocodile on his own and lost." Robin continues, "but he made it back to Alubarna and fought him again, lost again, and then he followed him down into the tombs under the city and fought him again, winning despite the fact he'd been poisoned."

"Super tense," Franky whistles "But he wouldn't have been worried about anyone."

"No way, worried about Vivi-chwan!" Sanji cooes "And her country!"

"Most likely while in the tomb," Robin theorizes.

"Skypiea's next!" A pause as the group mulls it over.

"Aisa?" Nami tries.

"I don't think there was anything there," Robin shakes her head, "It was rather low key for us. Water Seven however…"

"You caused us a lot of grief there, Robin." Nami scolds and Robin simpers in reply.

"Aside from my endeavor, he also was facing difficulties with Usopp and Merry. I believe that would increase the chances of a lapse there. And after that Thriller Bark, perhaps Zoro's injury?"

"Good enough chance," Sanji sucks in on the filter, "Saobody." He releases a stream of smoke. "No chance he'll skip that. We're gonna have to relive it."

" _He's_ going to have to relive it _."_ Chopper pulled at his hat, stressing. "This isn't good for his blood pressure, it's a lot better than it was but still…"

"Luffy can take a little bit of pressure," Nami dismisses, flapping his hand, "He's gotten through a lot worse. Besides, when has it ever been a problem? He's good under pressure."

"Or rather we thought he was." Robin stares at a corner of the ceiling, lost in thought as she considers. "He doesn't seem to be handling the situations very well when they come back at him, I wonder…"

"It's probably cause it's really sudden, I mean, emotionally…?" Chopper casts around for an explanation but nothing seems right. Luffy and emotionally don't really go together, Luffy is always happy; or really angry. The captain they've had bouncing around the ship for the past couple days isn't the same as they've become accustomed to. "It's a lot of stress I guess. Maybe that's why his blood pressure is higher, 'cause of all this stress. The pressure…?"

"Luffy's better than that," Sanji dismisses but Robin has latched onto the idea, is rubbing her fingers around the handle of her tea cup.

"On the contrary, we're all only human. More or less," She nods at Chopper, smiling wanly, "Humans have limits, even a rubber man can only be stretched so far, I'm sure, perhaps this is pushing at those limits. Singular events such as this suddenly grouped together, it'd be enough, I'm sure, to drive anyone crazy. I hope he doesn't go mad once this is all over."

Chopper shrieks and Franky chortles. While Nami mutters darkly about him deserving a little crazy after all he's put them through. It's an ice breaker, despite the actual idea behind the statement, and the mood dissipates, falling into regularity.

"Guys!" Luffy bursts in through the door, grinning broadly and breathing quickly, not due to being tired but to being excited. "Come see! Guys come look at the mountain! It's mad!" He's vibrating in place, filled to the brim with motion and anticipation.

"I don't suppose you mean that the volcano is exploding, do you?" Robin asks and Luffy nods giddily, he stills for a moment and no one likes the look he gets on his face.

"I wanna go see it." His grin flashes bright again and with a turn of his heel he's gone, and Brook is calling out, asking why he jumped onto the dock, and where is he running to?

Silence, Sanji stands and plods toward the door, muttering maledictions under his breath.

"I'm gonna kill 'im." Nami stands, both her hands braced on the table. Sanji stops, listening with a nonchalant expression. "I'm gonna go catch him and then I'm going to skin him alive. I'll sell his head for every belli it's worth!" She swears, storming past Sanji, out the door. Chopper looks around the room, asks:

"Shouldn't somebody help her?"

"I think that Nami is going to handle this one by herself," Robin hums and Chopper looks affronted.

"But Luffy could already be on the other side of the docks! We should all search!"

"I'll make food for when she brings him back," Sanji sags a little and strolls into the kitchen and Robin uses the distraction to finish.

"He can't get so far that Nami won't track him down. She'll keep him out of might even run into Zoro and Usopp. Luffy's often fortunate like that."

Chopper calms slightly and jumps out of the chair, readjusting the medical bag on his back. He peers out the still open door before shaking his head.

"I hope so," He tells her and meanders back into his office, the meeting adjourned.

Robin nods in agreement and Franky groans and then stands, offering her a wave before grabbing a cola bottle and vanishing into the bowels of the ship.

As Robin sips her tea she waves a hand and a duplicate blooms beside her elbow, reaching down to pull a piece of paper and a pen from the satchel at her side, it begins to scrawl words across the page in her tight, but perfectly legible script. She frowns as she ponders, mulling over the words as she places them out in ink. She sets down her tea.

"As do I."


	7. Coincidences-or not?

"This way, moron!" Usopp tugs harder, though it doesn't (and never will) make much of a difference. He's like a man pushing a mountain. No, some men can do that kind of thing, like emperors and Shichibukai and Luffy. A better analogy would be a devil fruit user trying to move a seastone wall.

Though a good analogy for his intent is to instruct a South bird to fly North.

"It's this way! You're giving me the wrong directions!" Zoro barks, and again forges ahead stubbornly. Nami could make a lot of money if she hooked him up with some plowing equipment and sent him hiking. Guy could build a road on an evening stroll.

Usopp grunts and readjusts his grip, still foolishly trying to deter Zoro from walking in the opposite direction of the docks, which they can see from here.

"No, Zoro, the Sunny is in the ocean, at the docks, which are this way." He weedles and pulls and manages to turn the swordsman in the right direction for about five paces before a side alley draws him the the left. Shoot.

His grip slips loose and Zoro slides free, trudging on down the alley like he hadn't just made a ninety degree turn, was he even more directionally challenged than usual today?

Usopp lets out a frustrated noise and traipses after the green haired behemoth, dragging his feet as he tries to work out a better method of transporting the unswayable mountain than just telling him where to go; he should have known, Zoro never gets somewhere that easily, just getting told where to go.

"Zoro-o-oh!" There's a hand on his shoulder, but not to catch his attention, he's being used as a base to push off of and in the resulting spin he catches the blur of red and the exuberant giggle as Luffy swings his arms around Zoro's neck and pulls him forward with him.

"Sorry Zoro, I'm glad you're okay. You're pose was really cool but I'm happy you're not a statue!" The words gush and Usopp doesn't catch the meaning until Luffy's started jabbering out a new sentence. "Look it, Zoro, look at the mountain! It's exploding, cool huh? Come on, I wanna see!"

Zoro just kind of grunts and let's Luffy pull him along, like letting a puppy lead him with the leash (except the leash is a rubber arm. Man he's rocking these analogies/similes).

"Hey wait!" Usopp calls when he manages to catch his balance, they're already halfway out the other end of the alle- oop, no, they're all the way out the alley and around the corner. Usopp sags despondently, no one listens to him…

"What are you waiting for, go after them!" A shrill voice scolds and orange hair whips through his vision as Nami sprints past, her face alight with anger and exasperation. "Come on! He's getting ahead!" He stumbles into a run beside her, tripping forward for several steps before locating his rhythm.

"Nami…"

"You had a lead and you lost it moron!" Her fist seems to be impending but she turns the corner first, and Usopp catches the end of Zoro's sword disappearing around yet another corner, redeeming himself by pointing at it and yelling:

"There they are!"

Nami lunges toward the road they'd turned onto, hurtling across a market square paved with obsidian and smelling of fish, Usopp treks doggedly behind her, trying to fit the pieces together into a picture that doesn't resemble an okapi with two heads. Or a jackelope with eight legs. Or a platapus. Something not mixed up.

~6~

Usopp clings to the wall with all ten fingers and curls his toes inside his boots, anything for a little extra grip. Luffy is moving above him doggedly, reaching up, pulling up, stepping up, repeat. His limbs don't even shake as he scales the rock wall, inch by inch. The only reason he's going so slow is because Nami is above him, she demanded she climb first so that Luffy could catch her if she fell. It was an easy wall after all, but also atall and steep one, Usopp can feel the strain in his arms especially.

If Zoro were still here he'd have just hitched a ride on his back. Zoro wouldn't mind, heck, he'd thank him ( not really) for giving him extra weight training! Yeah…

But reality persists. Zoro got lost. So now it's just the three of them. Climbin' a wall. Yup.

Luffy starts chattering and releases one hand from the wall to point at a globule of lava that has spurted from the cone of the volcano and is flying through the sky, possibly frying a few birds in it's flight. Nami shrieks at him to stop letting go of the wall and he reluctantly reattaches his hand to a rock. Usopp watches the globule drop out of the air and fall into the forest, smoke trailing.

"H-Hey, you don't think one of those things is gonna hit us do you?"

"Don't be stupid, Usopp." Nami hisses, reaching upwards, "With him here we're guaranteed our own personal lava shower."

"Wow Nami!" Luffy jabbers "You can predict that too? I knew you were the best navigator!"

"Well I can't navigate if I'm dead so you ought to stop putting us in these situations, idiot." She brightens as her hands reach flatter ground, she's reached the top! Usopp heaves a sigh of relief as she struggles to scrabble over the top, it's a weird overhanging edge, so he's happy Luffy is going to be able to pull him up. He may have beefed up his arms but that doesn't mean he likes using his strength to dangle by his fingertips.

"I guess you can't," Luffy muses, and Usopp looks up as he hears his captain's voice quiver. It's small, Nami doesn't catch it, but Usopp does, and he's got a dreadful feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Luffy, you all right up there?" He calls, timid. Luffy doesn't answer, just shivers and... lets… go? Shoot! Shoot he lets go and he's falling and shoot.

~6~

Just a little further, he knows it's right there, just a little too far for him to reach with one more pull. Cold nips, no, cold rips, no, cold nudges with a sort of disappointed howl against his numb skin, distressed that the muscles are too tense, to strained, already too stiff with tension and ice for it to sink it's fangs into. Luffy grits his teeth harder, tastes the fabric of Sanji's coat and the blood from his lips that have seeped into it. The next grasp brings a fresh lance of pain gallivanting into his fingers, through his wrist, up his arm, it shocks his body every time, that he can still feel pain when he is so numb.

"Doctor…" his voice cracks, though he's not surprised, every part of him would shatter at the touch of a hammer, he's so cold…

But Nami is a warm weight against his back, the only source of warmth for miles (down that is, probably side to side too) but he can tell she's too warm, he wishes she were colder, she's burning with fever, not with natural warmth.

He needs to get them there faster, but already his muscles protest at the prospect of moving no less moving quickly. He's always been too slow.

"Doctor…" He no longer recognizes that he's speaking, it's just a voice in his head as air rushes around Sanji's coat, and the sound is whipped away by the eager jaws of the cold gales that bound around all three bodies.

The instant his hand touches snow, snow, not rock, the world lurches into a different, clearer sort of focus. It is gone, the snow is gone and he gasps, then grasps for Sanji's coat because he's going to fall! But there's nothing there either, no weight on his back, they're gone he must have dropped them, they're falling.

It's easy, disturbingly easy, for him to let go, for his sore and shaking fingers to unclench and drop away from the rock wall that seems to be significantly less sheer than it'd been a moment ago.

"Oh my- no stop- Aghk!" Luffy isn't sure who it is that says these things, his ears are numb, but the fact that another body is here means that it must be Sanji or Nami, so he reaches out and wraps himself around them, in some effort to shield them from what is going to be an exceedingly hard fall.

He's tumbling, it's just as he thought, he's so cold his skin is brittle, the rocks jutting from the mountain slice long swathes of scratch marks into his skin and he tightens his hold on the body he clings to.

The ground arrives all too soon and he yelps as the first impact surely marks bruises into his skin, though he has to be thankful, had he not been rubber it would have been much more than a bruise. He rolls, leaves whisk across his face and branches snap dully against his skin until he rolls with a heavy thump into a tree, the bark digging through the skin and his shirt.

He breathes for a moment, numb in more ways than one, then uncurls.

Usopp springs away the second Luffy's arms loosen, rubbing his arms and chattering his teeth as the temperature of Luffy's skin brings goosebumps and a cold so chilling it burns.

"Why the heck are you so cold!" He gabbles, turning in an instant to help Luffy, who seems more than a little dazed, to his feet.

Luffy stares at him for a moment, blinking rapidly as his eyes skitter over the things in his view. The tree, with green leaves, not pine needles, the ground, the missing snow, the man in front of him with the long nose.

"Usopp?" He ventures, though not because he's unsure it's Usopp, more like he's unsure if Usopp is really there because he's fairly certain that he only climbed the mountain with Nami and Sanji. Also, he's quite sure it was winter, so something's wrong with the picture anyhow.

"I mean, what the heck! You knocked me right off the wall! What's the big idea? Jumping off a rock face like that? Oh, okay, never mind." He sighs as Luffy gives him a blank, confused, almost tragic look. "Alright Luffy, umm, here, sit tight and I'll go tell Nami what happened…"

"Nami?" Luffy tenses, lurching forward on unsteady feet. "Nami's sick, she needs the doctor, the doctor's on the mountain, I gotta get her there, and Sanji, Sanji needs help!" Usopp caught Luffy's arms before he could move past him, backed him down slowly but forcefully.

"Jeez! Luffy, you're an icicle, Nami's fine, I'll explain in just a minute, promise."

"Promise?" Luffy repeats.

"Promise." Usopp nods and releases him, backing a few steps into the tree line and then turning and running back toward the wall they'd been scaling, Nami was standing at the top, yelling both of their names in various tones of exasperation, worry, and anger.

"Usopp!" She exclaims when he bursts out, gasping "Where's Luffy, was it…?"

"Yeah, another lapse." Usopp admits. "Drum I think."

"I should probably come down then…" Nami shoulders her backpack and turned around to start climbing down "You'll have to catch me if I fall," She calls and Usopp cringes.

"Actually, he's pretty riled up, I think it's better if you don't," He yells up and she twists around to glare.

"He's worried about me, right? That's not very fair, I could probably solve this a whole lot faster than letting it take it's course."

Usopp hesitates, she's right after all. If Luffy saw her then he wouldn't be so worked up about the memory he'd been in and they could explain things to him and two people usually worked better than one… But then he considered the red coating that had Luffy's skin looking more like a victim to extreme sunburn then what had to be frost bite, and his panicked tone when he asked where Nami was. No, Nami didn't need to see that. Besides, Nami had had to catch Luffy up three times already, and it hadn't gone over particularly well any of those times, maybe Usopp could make a few tweaks to, um, tailor it.

"Yeah, but I think you'll upset him more, he's all up about Sanji too!"

"Sanji?" She repeated, "What about Sanji?"

"Beats me!" He shrugs, "But let's just see if I can handle it kay? We'll meet you at the peak!" She looks at him suspiciously but meanders away from the edge, giving him one last stern look.

"You take care of him, Usopp. I'm holding you entirely accountable if something happens."

He salutes and smiles thinly at her back. "Yes Ma'm!"

"Don't call me Ma'm!"

~6~

He really shouldn't have expected anything different, particularly since this was an anxious Luffy being considered, though that was specifically why he'd hoped Luffy would actually stay put.

Instead he finds a marginally trashed path into what is seemingly the thickest part of the jungle from this particular point.

He sets out at a jog, because even if Luffy is frostbitten and injured from whatever he'd been doing in the memory if he was fueled by the desire to help a crewmate, he could be halfway across the island by this point.

Okay, so he wasn't quite that far.

"Ahhh," He groans, taking a high step over a miraculously undamaged fern. "You're ridiculous…"

Luffy grunts in his sleep, twists slightly toward Usopp, but his body nudges closer to the edge of the incline he's laid down at the top of.

"Oh, no no no, don't roll over!" Usopp instructs, doing his best to step lightly so as not to startle the sleeping man. "I swear, you must do this on purpose." He reaches out and wraps an arm firmly around Luffy's midsection and tugs him away from the ravine carved into the bedrock by a steady stream of lava which courses down the mountain in this particular spot. Luffy grunts and flails for a moment as Usopp rubs his forehead to check if his eyebrows are still there or if they got incinerated by the heat rising in waves from the depths of the thin ravine.

"'Sopp?" He mumbles as he rolls free of Usopp's grip long enough to move back to the heat source so that Usopp has to snatch him again before he dumps himself into a shallow stream of lava.

"Yeah, it's Usopp," He grumbles "Wake up now, before you try and kill yourself."

Luffy shivers and opens his eyes, looking up at Usopp with bleary eyes that don't focus immediately. He blinks, then smiles thinly.

"This is a cool island," He tells him cheerfully "It changes seasons really fast."

Bless Luffy's logic. Usopp thinks and grins at his captain.

"It is a cool island, heck, it changes time too!" He explains. "You like my hat? I got it two years in the future!"

"No way!" Luffy laughs with him and Usopp feels a surge of pride that this is probably the quickest any of them have managed to right Luffy's memories since this whole debacle started. "But Usopp, what about Sanji and Nami? I thought I was at the top…"

"You were!" He nods "And as soon as you got there the island switched times! Nami got better at super speed!" He laughs and Luffy laughs too. "You fell though, that was stupid," Usopp scolds, then hesitates at the touch of Luffy's frigid fingers against his sunburned arm. "You're really cold."

Luffy shrugs, finds his footing and Usopp pulls him up. "It was snowing and I gave Nami my jacket. What about Sanji?"

"He's better too,"

"Good."

Luffy seems content after that, as though his mission in life has been fulfilled (which it hasn't Usopp hasn't seen the crown of the pirate king placed over top of that Straw hat yet) and he trails along as Usopp leads him through the jungle, chattering about meaningless stuff that he's hoping will rile the man enough to make him stop staring so aimlessly into space.

"So after I defeated the lightning monster with my greatest rubber band shot ever," Usopp continues "all the people of the island made of clouds came and thanked me with many gifts, seashells and strange fruits and gold! They even erected a statue of me, it still stands today!" He finishes proudly, glancing back to see Luffy's reaction.

It was sub par. He nods and hums in appreciation, a semi loopy smile flickering across his face as some thought in particular appealed to him.

"I bet you got a feast, with a lot of meat."

"Oh-ho! You've never seen a feast quite like this one! The table alone was miles long! And the plates stacked several meters high! The delicacies, oh, the succulent smell of roasted cloud fish, the flaking skin of breaded sky salamander, the hard shell of that-weird-fruit and the taste of its thirst quenching juice that left my tongue tasting sweet for days, the pumpkins." He nods knowledgeably as an earthquake trembles through the ground, shaking the bedrock as the volcano spurts and red goes hurtling overhead, sizzling through the air.

Usopp told Luffy earlier he didn't mind it, that it was just a volcano and he'd faced down a tidal wave in a metal train once, that a volcano was nothing.

Course, Usopp's a liar, so there's that.

He doesn't care that numerous locals told Robin, Chopper, and Nami that the volcano had never truly caused problems, it was too slow, lava dripped down the sides in gooey, slow motion waves, and the lava that went flying wasn't as frequent as it seemed. The fact is that he is hiking to the top of a volcano that is erupting and he rather dislikes the notion, no, he finds the notion terrifying. Luffy doesn't even know he wanted to see the volcano, he's in a post frostbite haze, heck, Usopp wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't realize that there's even a volcano on the island. He could/should just turn them around and bring them back to the Sunny so Sanji can make his shivering captain a mug of hot chocolate and Chopper can freak out and smother the guy's skin with salve.

Problem is he told Nami he'd meet her at the top, he doesn't dare take them on the wall again, Luffy can hardly hold something in his hands, he keeps shivering, despite the fact that he's warming up. Besides, he isn't so desperate that he'll take advantage of his captain and wimp out on taking him to something he wants/wanted to see.

An earthquake rumbles through again, and it's echoed by Luffy's stomach. Usopp glances back and finds the loopy smile looking loopier, and drool gathering in the corners of his mouth.

"Roasted cloud fish…" Luffy repeats, and Usopp laughs freely. It might be because he's addled with cold, but it's nice to see Luffy more at ease, the last couple days have been something like problem to problem to situation to disaster to problem, most of them centered around Luffy. His captain deserves the lull.

They hike and Usopp gabbles, Luffy's hand begins to warm slightly in his, the pace remains unpressured, things are looking good.

Until Luffy's grip tightens in his hand and the warmth begins to flood back in full force.

Luffy gasps and stumbles, free hand pressing against his head as he hisses.

"Owww, head rush…" He blinks and looks up at Usopp, a befuddled frown settling into place. Then an almost hesitant grin. "Hey! I'm warm again!"

"Are you really?" Usopp blinks, and leans over, puts a hand on Luffy's cheek, then his shoulder. He's right, the frigidity is gone, Luffy feels fine, normal temperature. He looks at the hand he's still got trapped in his own and inspects it, noting that the nails are no longer cracked and the fingertips no longer ripped open. "Huh."

"I guess it's cause of the time island," Luffy decides, patting the ground fondly, "You said it's a time island, right?"

"Uh, yeah, time island." Usopp nods and then yelps as Luffy heaves himself up with the help of Usopp's arm; without warning, of course. "Watch it!"

"Ah, sorry." Luffy brushes himself off and helps Usopp up with a heave, beaming. "Where are we going again?"

Now or never. "The top of the volcano, up there." Never.

"Whoa! A volcano! So cool!"

"No, it's hot." Usopp jokes halfheartedly as Luffy's pace picks up exponentially and he quickly falls behind. And so the true climb seems to begin.

"Usopp, you said Nami and Sanji are alright, right?"

"Yeah, they both got better like that," Usopp snaps his fingers, gasping for breath.

"Good," he breathes again and Usopp shoots him a look, wondering.

"Nami was sick, what happened to Sanji again?" Usopp asks and Luffy blinks at him, as though he should know.

"Sanji fell off the log." He tells him matter-of-factly. Usopp stares for a moment before nodding slowly.

"He fell off the log." He repeats, tasting the words and trying to understand in some capacity how that makes sense. Problem is that it doesn't. "That makes no sense at all!"

"Sure it does!" Luffy frowns. "We were going up the mountains, and then there were rabbits and then there was snow, and then there was a log and then Sanji fell off." He nods somberly. "The snow got him."

"Not the rabbit's?" Usopp jokes but Luffy doesn't seem to get the joke.

"No, Sanji was better than the rabbits. The snow was all over the place though, and Sanji fell off our log."

"He lost his balance?"

"No he fell off." Luffy repeats heatedly. "What's it matter anyway?"

"I just want to understand," Usopp waves his hands, "Uhm- Sanji was all fixed up when I saw him so I don't know what happened to him, I'm just curious."

"Oh, well he broke a few bones or something like that," Luffy answers evasively and Usopp wonders what he did to cause the sudden defensive attitude.

"I'm happy he's okay then," He says and stays silent so Luffy can do with it what he wants, he can be so unreasonable.

"Me too, I don't like it when my nakama get broken." Luffy sniffs and pounds one fist into his palm and turns back around, his gait has shifted into more of a march, or even a stalk. "I should have kicked that snow's butt while it was still around, no one breaks my naka-" Luffy stops, stops walking stops talking, Usopp's over-reactive imagination screams for a minute as he considers the likeliness that Luffy has stopped breathing. He's not he's breathing, Usopp checks, but he's entirely still, a confused and surprised and slightly hurt expression constraining his usual smile.

He pokes him a few times to try and see if he'll move and he does, his head drops down to his chest and his breathing turns ragged in under a second as his body shivers for a short stretch.

"Luffy! Hey, now what happened, are you feeling alright?" He reaches out for his hand but Luffy puts a stop to that plan pretty quickly, he lifts his head with an almost audible snap of is neck and gives Usopp a look of such contempt that it takes all his willpower not to stumble backward.

Though it's more the guilt that shines there than the anger.

~6~

"If you don't like it then you can just pack up and-"

He's grateful. He's so hopelessly grateful that Sanji realized what he was saying before he did himself. He couldn't have handled it, saying that. Finishing that sentence, saying those words, and knowing he was the reason Usopp left. Because he'd told him to.

But Usopp had known too, and now Usopp was leaving, going, going, gone. And it didn't matter if he hadn't actually said it, for just a few seconds he'd meant it, and Usopp had understood those few seconds if nothing else he'd said in that argument. It was enough to make him wish for regret, to soothe the pounding guilt and the searing disbelief. He can't regret it, because it was a captain's decision and if Usopp truly wasn't going to deal with his decisions than it was the right thing to do. But that didn't make it hurt any less. That didn't mean Usopp deserved to have it yelled in his face. That doesn't mean Luffy had the right to say it like he did.

Just pack up and-

"Leave" He says to himself, scowling, rubbing his fingers over his ankles as he sits cross-legged on Merry's head. He should leave, really, he's a horrible captain for saying that, for agreeing to fight him. He's bad for agreeing because he'll beat him. He'll beat him, and Luffy can't do anything about that, because Usopp will know, and that will just make everything worse.

He grits his teeth and ducks his head, squeezing his ankles now, repeating it "Just leave, leave." He's always been so careless he's known that. He was angry and upset but that doesn't change anything, absolutely nothing.

It's his fault and his alone.

He feels himself begin to shudder and he hates it because he's supposed to be strong, and what better way to be weak than to cry because he can't be responsible and watch his mouth? What better way to proclaim his incapabilities other than shouting to the rooftops, I've lost my archaeologist, my ship is dying, and I've kicked my best friend and sniper out on the street!

What better way than to cry?

And as the first tears dribble down his cheeks he shudders, letting his posture fall as that weight becomes just too much for one ma-

"Luffy! Hey, now what happened, are you feeling alright?"

He hadn't realized, that he'd moved, that the ground was sandy and riddled with tangled tree roots. He hadn't realized that Usopp was here.

He stares down at his hands for a moment, steeling his resolve, because as much guilt as he feels, there is no regret, and Usopp i-was on his crew. He can forgive, but he can't forget, and he can't take back, not now, not when they're all hurting like this and Usopp has only made it worse.

So Luffy raises his head and glares.

Usopp steps back, hands shooting into the air in surrender, and Luffy has to notice the changes, but he doesn't dwell, the moments spent steeling his resolve have done their job, he's angry now, angry all over again.

"What the heck do you think you're doing here?" He spits out, and it washes over him how similar this anger is to the anger he'd felt just an hour ago, how nothing has changed, how it seems that he's working against himself here. He doesn't care.

Usopp sputters for a moment and when he seems to be finding his words Luffy interrupts, pushing himself to his feet with a hard thrust, and leaning closer to his sniper, hissing his words.

"You left, you said you were leaving and I'm not going to take that lightly. You said you were going to do something, do it already." The pang catches Luffy off guard and just as Sanji's kick had, he feels the perspective snap and the guilt floods him again. Luffy can't swim.

He retreats but won't show his remorse, he won't he tugs his hat down, turns away, pain lacing his voice as he leaves his crew mate behind in… a jungle apparently. Whatever.

"I guess you were the best crewmate I had, you followed me down to the last order."

He storms away, because if he couldn't cry before than crying now is something irredeemable. He can't and he won't. He won't. He pushes away a few leafy fronds and forges a new path through the trees, leaving Usopp behind.

Usopp stands for a moment, staring after him, confusion and anger and hurt warring through his chest. Finally he sighs and rubs a hand over his face.

"Crap."

~6~

"They're not back yet," Franky observes as he marches up from below-deck carrying a bundle of steel balanced on one shoulder, he turns to observe the docks and the protruding metal nearly knocks off Brook's block as he turns. "Oh, sorry Brook."

"Not a problem Franky-san! It wouldn't be the first time I was decapitated!" Brook waved his hand, violin bow held carefully between the finger bones. "And, no, Nami-san hasn't returned with Luffy-san, and Usopp-san hasn't returned with Zoro-san."

"I'm not surprised about that second one, with the crappy sense of direction our moronic marimo has he won't be back aboard the ship for another month." Sanji strides out with a tray full of treats and a folded table under one arm, he sets it up with a flourish and sets down the tray, almost growling as Franky reaches with his huge hand for one of the dainty cupcakes.

"Oops, sorry Cook-bro," The small yellow hand pops out of his palm and picks the blue frosted cupcake up with his pinky sticking out daintily. Sanji grumbles before turning with a flourish to address Robin, who is perched on the edge of her lawn chair, arms crossed and eyes closed.

"Robin-chan! I brought you a delicious snack to please your palette of exquisite taste while you so elegantly gather information from neighboring ships!"

"She's eavesdropping," Chopper says glumly, seated next to her, his medical bag laid out on the lawn chair as he sorts through materials. "Luffy's isn't back and it's almost lunch."

"I'm rather certain that Zoro-san and Usopp-san have joined up with Luffy-san, otherwise he would be back by now surely." Brook consoles as Franky sets down the metal with a loud clang. "They had a lunch packed just in case, isn't that right, Sanji-san?"

"Yeah," Sanji grunts, still circling ardently with a new try in his hand, this one with a more select array of food items.

"If they're together I don't think there's anything to worry about." Franky munches on the cupcake, sucking a few licks of icing off his metal fingers and Sanji throws him a disgusted look before pulling a bottle of soap out of his pocket.

"Tell me you wash your hands, tell me you do." He emphasizes at Franky's bashful stutter.

"I can't! Metal rusts you know!"

"I don't care, I live with pigs! Pigs! Except for you and Nami-san, you ladies are exquisitely salutiferous! I learned that word from you, Robin-chan! So intelligent!" Sanji cooes for a few moments more while Franky grapples with the soap which slides through his fingers with ease, Chopper interrupts.

"Sanji can I take your blood pressure?"

Sanji pauses in his worship to acknowledge the reindeer with confusion.

"What for? You're always worried about my lungs, not my blood pressure," He waves around a cigarette for emphasis.

"I want to make sure my equipment is working correctly," Chopper clarifies, "When I took Luffy's blood pressure earlier it had changed between the different memory periods, and I want to make sure it wasn't caused by flawed instruments."

"Sure, I guess." Sanji sits down and rolls up his sleeve, allowing Chopper to wrap the material around his bicep.

"I thought it was just marginal error," Chopper explains as he works, "But everytime I took it it went lower, so it can't be fluctuating that much so consistently.

"Sure it can, his bodies all crazy right now, things are bound to be up and down." Franky disagrees. "Besides, this is medical science, don't you know about the law of conservation of mass?"

"Well, vaguely but it doesn't really apply…"

"Sure it does!" Franky slaps his knee and pulls over Nami's lawn chair, sitting on the end and holding his hands out, ready to explain. "Now, Usopp bro does this stuff more often then me with all his chemical attacks, but when I'm working with reactions as a fuel, and for my beams, I've got to know my fair share."

"That law I mentioned is all about the mass, the idea is that no matter what you do to substances in an experiment, mass can't just up and disappear, or disappear. Look at Luffy-bro, there's nowhere for this stuff to go once he's shrunk, so his blood pressure has got to be majorly high thanks to all that matter squished down to kid size."

"As he got bigger there was more space and less condensed parts of his body," Sanji realized, nodding along. "He must have had a lot of pressure in his system with all that body pent up…"

"I'd been thinking it might be stress," Chopper murmured, "but this makes a lot of sense…"

"It could be both, Chopper-san," Brook offers, "There are many kinds of pressure, perhaps both have been affecting Luffy-san."

"But, but that's ridiculous!" Chopper huffs, exasperated. "The human body can't handle that kind of pressure, er, either kind of pressure in such huge amounts! They have coping mechanisms and, shrinking doesn't just happen!"

"It does for Luffy, he used to use third gear all of the time and he always shrunk." Sanji taps at the dial on the pressure gauge to indicate it's done and Chopper jots down the number, unwrapping the mechanism. "And Luffy isn't really human, is he?"

"Sure he is!" Chopper argues, "He has all the same parts, the same systems."

"Chopper-san, I think that what Sanji-san means is that the devil fruit changes things, Luffy-san is the only rubber man in the world. We already know this allows him to do things that normal people can not, doesn't that same principle apply to things being done to him?" Chopper doesn't seem to get it so Brook thinks for a moment before elaborating again, this time with an example. "Chopper-san, am I human?" A nod "But I have no nervous system, no lungs, many of the normal human parts are missing. Ah, except the skeletal system!" He laughs and Chopper frowns for another moment before realization dawns.

"So, being rubber, his body can handle the pressure of being scrunched down to that size, but there are other kinds of pressure, and his body can handle that kind too, or at least it should." He pulls out a notebook and compares the numbers of Sanji's blood pressure to previous readings, nodding slowly. "My equipment is working right, so it has to all be natural, in a sense… You don't think… You don't think this is because of his devil fruit do you? I mean it's because of his devil fruit that it's possible, but could it be that his devil fruit is somehow the cause?" Chopper's voice has climbed in volume and jumped upward an octave.

"I believe it's plausible," Sanji cooes as Robin opens her eyes and joins the conversation, leaning back on her hands. "Perhaps if we consider more the effect of pressure on rubber, if Luffy were a bouncy ball that you threw against a wall…"

"He'd bounce back," Franky grunts, pondering. "And if you threw it too hard…"

"It'd break." Robin agrees, smiling pleasantly.

"Ehhhhh?" Chopper gasps, "No! We can't let that happen!"

"Perhaps a different analogy?" Robin muses "A rubber band?"

"Pull it too far and it snaps." Franky shrugs. "How about a balloon?"

"Blow it up too much and it pops." Sanji answers, monotone. Chopper is beginning to shake.

"But, that hasn't happened, right?" Chopper jumps to his feet, raring to go, "We have to go check on Luffy! We can't let any of that stuff happen to him!"

"I think that perhaps Luffy is making sure that doesn't happen to him," Robin hums, considering. "Some part of him anyhow, his subconscious, or just motor functions built in with the devil fruit."

"What are you implying, Robin-san?" Brook presses curiously.

"Perhaps this shrinking and regrowing is a coping method?" She replies, "He mentioned earlier that he cried about Sabo's death for a week, clearly it was jarring for him, but we have seen no evidence of the event now, so it must not have stayed with him as some of the events we're seeing resurface now."

"You think Sabo's death doesn't mean anything to him?" Franky yells, getting to his feet as tears start to sprout and fall in waterfall mode.

"Not at all, I think he has made his peace with it, that it no longer plagues him as these memories seem to. After these events that he keeps triggering, that clearly upset him, did he ever seems to release the anger? His emotions?" She directs the question at Sanji who thinks carefully for a moment before shaking his head.

"No, other than finishing the job he never brought stuff up again, I always thought he just took his anger out on the brutes that caused the whole thing."

"It would seem that is not the case," Robin stands and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, turning to regard the mountain calmly. "However, we have a more pertinent issue on our hands, our dear friends the marines have decided that the best way to recapture Luffy is a surprise attack, a mass ambush of sorts. Supposedly he's hiking to the top of the mountain with Nami and Usopp." The group stiffens at her words, considering the vulnerability of not only their captain but of Nami and Usopp as they're saddled with trying to protect him. And if another lapse were to strike in the middle of the fight? Chopper shudders and Brook's fingers crick dangerously tightly on the violin bow.

"Oh, well then." Franky stands and picks up one of the bigger pieces of metal from the pile he'd carted up from below-deck. He turns and his mechanical eye flickers to a reddish hue. "I think we need to pay our marine friends a visit."

~6~

Usopp has been following him for twenty minutes. He doesn't think Luffy knows this and that's good, but if this fight goes on much longer he'll find out, because like heck he's gonna sit here and let some stupid lava spider kill his captain just because Luffy's mad at him and he's mad at Luffy. Which he's not, not really, what are you talking about, it's not his fault, he didn't mean a word of it, you know that- Okay, yeah, he's mad. Distressed, maybe. But that doesn't matter.

"Gum Gum Gatling!" Luffy calls and sends a rapid barrage of punches against the man-sized spider, which clacks its mandibles and retreats a few steps before scuttling forward again. Usopp clenches his fingers around the pellet loaded into his slingshot as Luffy rolls to one side, sloppy, the spider is quick on its (many) feet and it snatches Luffy up by his ankle as he tries to get back to his feet. Usopp lets the pellet fly.

Foam erupts from the pellet and fizzes up around the spider's body, capturing its (many) legs and drawing a yell of outrage and surprise from Luffy.

"Special Attack: Liquid Cotton!" He drops from the tree branch (not too high) and held out his kabuto, knowing he was going to get punched for this later. "Don't think you can attack my captain and get away with it!"

"Shut up!" Luffy strains in the flailing leg, clearly livid as his forehead creases and his body flails.

The spider hisses and flings Luffy to the side, the boy thuds into a tree and then stumbles back into a fighting position. With a sudden haze of heat the foam melts away and the spider clambers free of the remains of the hardening shell, spitting mad now as it scuttles toward Usopp, eight eyes gleaming with malice.

"Get away!" Luffy roars and Usopp doesn't know if he's yelling to the spider or at him. It doesn't matter anyway, he's not leaving, and neither is the spider.

"You're crazy!" Usopp bellows, raising his kabuto and loading in a new projectile, not sure which one but it's from his 'attacks' pocket, so if he'd organized things correctly it wouldn't be a banana boat or something. Luffy gets in the way of his shot before he can let loose, throwing himself onto the spider's abdomen and sliding down to cling to one of the legs, Usopp sees it when a suicidal plan takes root.

"Gum Gum… Wind-up...!" He stretches out a leg in a high kick and pulls it back down, wrapping it several dozen times around the joint of the spider's leg, and then with a roar he pulls loose, his leg follows him as he jumps away, and as it pulls away from the spider's body so does the spider's leg, twisted into an unnatural angle and then a sickening crack, the spider rears and screams.

Luffy thuds down a few feet away, looking a little winded, but he pushes himself up and goes to run at the arthropod again, Usopp shoots before he can. The projectile lands true, between another joint of another leg, and javelin bamboo springs to life from all sides of the joint, growing more when the bottom stalks strike ground and take root.

Bamboo, what can he say? An invasive species if there ever was one.

"Get out of here!" Luffy blusters, stalking over like he's leading a storm to rain down on his head, Usopp stands straighter. "This is my fight, you're-, you're not even on my crew anymore!" He clenches a fst and looks away for a few seconds before his anger seems to flare again. "You're going to get yourself killed." He says, cold.

"Hate to say it but you're wrong on all three counts," Usopp replies brazenly. He shouldn't, he can see Luffy getting riled by his fighting words as his body grows tense and his hair practically stands on end. He's like some kind of animal. "I may have left your crew for a short while, and it was the biggest mistake of my life, Luffy. I'm a Straw Hat through and through." The spider has thrashed enough to break of most of the bamboo and is advancing again, Usopp pulls another pellet out, this time aware that it is a kind of discus plant, with very sharp edges, he fires and shaves off the leg Luffy had nearly detached, the limb thuds to the ground and the spider screeches again, Usopp is getting a headache. "I won't get myself killed, because as you can see my ammunition is pretty darn awesome and holding up much better than your punches. As for this being your fight? Nami entrusted you to me, and there is no chance between Fishman Island and Skypeia that I'm going to go back to her and tell her I let you die."

"Bull." Luffy snarls but the conversation is cut short as a long black leg with glowing red veins smacks down between them, they jump apart and Luffy jumps to thud a kick into the spider's underbelly.

"I know-" Usopp dodges "You're upset, I am-" Duck, shoot. "Too. This is pretty confusing but-" Luffy darts forward and gatlings the spider's underbelly again, searching for a kink in the armor, he injured and missing leg aren't affording them much of a handicap advantage. "This is two years in the future, something made you shrink- Euch!" at the punches the spider spins around to face where Luffy had emerged on the other side, and from its spinnerets came a steady stream of white spider's silk, especially sticky edition. It wraps around Usopp in a gloopy mass that he immediately tries to pull off, as he feels it hardening as it dries. "And now you keep lapsing into the past and you have to get me out of this before it dries!"

"Stop lying," Luffy grumbles as he sprints past, pulling Usopp out of the sticky mass on the way. "You left, because you were mad and because I was mad. I told you to go, and you decided to go, you didn't come back."

"Luffy, look at my face, do I look like the same Usopp that you know?"

Luffy gives him a square look that shifts into a glare and snarls:

"Your stupid nose is the same!"

"Oi!" Usopp rubs the offended appendage. "I thought you liked my nose!"

"I do, I'm just mad!" Luffy stomps a foot and turns back to the spider without so much as another half glance, yelling as he charges, his fist swinging.

He's running away. Usopp realizes with a shock, He's upset because I left and he doesn't know how to deal with it because beating me up isn't going to solve anything, for once. He snorts, shakes his head, watches Luffy run a right hook into the spider's face. Stupid Captain, if you wanted me back you could've just told me… He thinks back, remembering how adamant he'd been not to return to the crew, not to face his mistakes, he'd created Sogeking, he'd faced down enemies he'd have never dreamed of fighting had he not been so determined to remain clicks into place. Maybe luffy couldn't have just asked; maybe it's his fault Luffy was still caught up in this whole stupid argument two years later. No, it is his fault, because when he thought he'd been having his pride degraded by a stupid fight Luffy had suffered a blow to his confidence and respectability as a Captain, and Usopp had done that to him.

Maybe Usopp had apologized, and maybe Luffy had accepted, but that doesn't mean none of it happened, and Usopp is struck by the sudden realization that that is something Luffy acknowledged that he never truly did.

"Awchk!" Usopp snaps back into the present to see Luffy's shoulder speared by one of the spider's large mandibles; it's just the tip, but it has enough of a hold for it to toss Luffy up into the air and watch him fall eagerly, eyes glimmering and red lava veins pulsing with heat.

Enough playing around.

Usopp slides his goggles over his head and fishes three pop greens from his bag, sliding them into the slingshot and firing them with confidence and efficiency.

"Trampolia, Rafflesia, Impact Wolf!" The stench of the rafflesia fills the clearing instantaneously and the spiders rears in surprise and distraction, allowing Luffy a clear fall to the ground where he bounces off the trampolia and safely to the side as the impact wolf charges across the distance between him and the spider, bowling the thing over with its power.

Luffy's on the ground, his hand shifting between putting pressure on the wound oozing blood from his shoulder and pinching his nose shut, which leads to disgusting red smudges on his nose and cheeks.

Usopp bounds across the battleground and grabs Luffy's arm, dragging him with him into the treeline, the boy sputtering in confusion and anger as his rubber body bangs into various obstacles that Usopp doesn't bother to try and let him avoid.

"Usopp, let go," the words ring like an order and Usopp drops Luffy's arm, better to not antagonize him anymore, they're far enough away from the spider to prevent problems, probably.

"Are you going to listen to me now?" He asks, leaning his back against a tree and watching as Luffy pants for a few moments, rubbing at thin scratches he gained from running into rough bark.

"I don't want to," Luffy crosses his arms and pouts, looking the other way, wincing as the movement pulled at his shoulder. Usopp rolls his eyes, rummages through his bag.

"At least let me bandage it before you go aggravating it." He finds the roll and steps toward Luffy who blinks once before scowling and going to undo the buttons on his shirt; it was nostalgic seeing him in it, being the same kind of vest he used to wear every day two years ago, they'd had him change after they got him back from the marines.

As he'd said Luffy doesn't want to talk and he shows it by remaining silent as Usopp wraps up his shoulder with sloppy, winding motions (What? Chopper's the one who does this!). Admittedly he does squirm, as is customary, he's incapable of remaining still, especially when someone is prodding at an injury.

"You should be more careful," Usopp chides, just to fill the silence, "Spiders can be poisonous." He almost expects Luffy to blow him off, saying that he's immune to poison but then he remembers that Luffy wouldn't know that yet, he briefly wonders if Luffy's bdy still has it's antibodies if the events that caused them haven't happened yet.

"And honestly, did you think I was going to run in there if I thought I was gonna die?"

"Sure," Luffy answers, gruff, "You fight people all the time and they always almost kill you."

"I don't usually have a choice with them," He argues "And besides, you're not one to talk!" Luffy grumbles and looks away, still petulant. Usopp sighs and knows there's only one way to get through this.

"I'm sorry."

Luffy straightens and tilts his head back to look at Usopp, a look of judgement coming across his features.

"I'm sorry that I said what I did, and that I went against you like that. You didn't deserve to be treated like that, I was just mad, and I'm tired of being pulled into these crazy situations and fights that I don't stand a chance at winning." He laughs lightly, tying off the bandage and stepping back. "But we make it through, we always do, and we come back to our home, to Merry, and then we rest up and it's all better. And now you thought that it was time to let her go? You wanted to give away the home we've had, the haven that I'd always taken care of, and Kaya gave her to us, Luffy." He holds out his hands, palm up, 'what can I do?' shakes his head. "I shouldn't have done any of it, and you were right, of course you were." He shakes his head again, rubs his nose, tries not to think too much of when Merry burned.

"No," Luffy's voice is hard and Usopp looks up surprised, "I didn't want to let her go, I didn't want a new ship, I wanted Merry. I argued with the shipwrights and they all told me, she's broken, and nothing anybody does can fix that. No one wants to hear that Usopp, no one, but I'm Captain so I have to and then I have to tell all of you…" He closes his eyes, rotates his newly bandaged shoulder. "I feel the same way, it's just what has to happen." Usopp nods, slow.

"I know."

They sit for a moment, Luffy's leg jiggles as he tries to stay still, but clearly the animosity has passed, their normal dynamic is returning. Usopp's shoulders sag. He may have rejoined the crew over two years ago but he feels the same relief as though he's been accepted all over again.

"You want to hear what I was trying to say? It's pretty cool, time travel and stuff." Luffy perks up, an eager grin spreading from cheek to cheek.

"Sure! Time travel is cool, there's usually robots. Are there robots?"

"Umm, just one." He thinks of Franky and grins, then is struck by inspiration. "You've got to remember though Luffy what I'm telling you is true, and I have something I want you to do for me when I'm done telling it. You remember dials from Skypeia, don't you?" Luffy nods.

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, those are useful little buggers. And this one is it's own sort of time traveler…"

 **~6~**


	8. Rapid fire

"Oh-no no no!" Usopp gropes, reaching, but misses the retreating hem of Luffy's shirt as he yells and tumbles over the side of the smooth bottomed, oversized sitch that they've been walking along for te better part of fort-five minutes. "Can't you, just, not!" Usopp whines, flapping his hands to his sides and groaning as Luffy bumbles down the steep sides of the almost ravine and plods along the glassy black ground toward his hat, which is still skittering along as the wind pushes it insistently away from Luffy, who just treks doggedly after it.

It wouldn't be so bad but this is the fourth time in those fortyfive minutes, and Usopp is tired of having to fret that an unfortunate state of events is going to lead to Luffy being down there and him being up here and one of Luffy's lapses causing complications.

So far so good, but he's not holding his breath.

Luffy turns and shades his eyes to see Usopp up on the edge of the steep wall, laughing and spreading his hands.

"I'm fine Usopp, see, fine!" He turns in a circle so Usopp really can see and Usopp grumbles a little but waves him on. It's so tiring having to look after Luffy when he actually needs looking after, usually it's just all of them being worry warts and the omnipresent fear that Luffy's troubles, which he coulf get out of on his own, would grow to involve them, who had a harder time getting out of said troubles.

There's a low rumble and Usopp turns to regard they top of the mountain, their destination, not so far off now, heck, close enough that the can see the lava has begun to ooze down. Well, he hasn't looked in a while, it's possible that it's been going for a time. Lazily he traces what little of the run the lava has carved for itself over time he can see, it buries itself in a reasonably thick carpet of tree canopies a litle ways off, but if he traces is it right...

He does, and he sees it and _shoot_ it's going way faster than lava has any right to go, and look _there's_ the warning bell! How nice of it to ring! The lava roars and hisses as it carves it's way through the run, funneled down into the black obsidian rut that Luffy is still in, bending over, reaching to tenderly lift his hat back onto his head with one palm. _Geez_ , now is not the time to be gentle nor theatrical. Accident prone moron!

"Luffy get out of the way!" Usopp's screech carries easily over the sudden, earth shaking barrage of sound and Luffy snatches his hat up from the dusty ground to look up at him queryingly. The ground's been shaking a lot, usually things like that only scare Usopp the first three or four times.

He opens his mouth to call back up a reassurance, Usopp'll listen, he's just nervous...

Before he can call though his knees go weak and he feels a wave of pain and nausea sweep through his body, curling into his stomach as a hard knot of agony, it floors him. He hears Usopp's panicked shout as he sinks downward, and his mind fumbles for an explanation but there isn't one. Other than the spider nothing's happened, nothing to warrant something like this, this feels like the aftermath of a big battle, a huge battle. It feels like… His eyes widen and he holds out his hands, wondering; it feels like it does after his training sessions, the ones he only indulges in when he gets a new idea. Second Gear is still in the works but whenever he uses it he gets this same drained constituition. _You're in the future, Usopp said this would happen_. He reminds himself but it doesn't stop the hint of disbelief, that in a few minutes he'll be back on Merry's head, mourning and deplorably affronted. He hates it. He musters the strength to push himself up to all fours instead of just lying here, miserable and weak. Usopp cheers and rapid fires questions that Luffy can't quite unerstand, he sounds like he's underwater. He looks up, searching for Usopp, but instead he faces down a wall of fire.

 _Lava,_ something in him corrects, _volcano, remember._ "Cool," He murmurs, watching the wave wash closer. This is why the valley is obsidian, it's a river-bed, lava probably flows through here naturally. He chokes out a laugh, glances up at Uspp, a blurry figure at the top of the wall, digging frantically through the bag at his side. Usopp'll get him out of this. He turns back to the wave of lava. It's slow, not crawling, but not like water, it's slow, if he could just move…

Tears come unbidden to crowd behind his eyes and the world blurs into a new shade of red.

Flames crawled over her hull, flickering a red orange light over the surrounding ocean, he grips the torch hard, getting splinters in his palm. Luffy drops the torch into the gaping chasm, it falls, fals, falls to the floor of Nami's bedroom, the flames spread inside now.

His knees feel weak, he knows he'll be buckling soon, but he only has to stand for a few more minutes, just a few more minutes, just to listen to her last words.

"Everyone, I'm sorry I couldn't carry you for just a little longer!" Her voice is smooth, he wishes he could have heard it sooner, it all feels too late. The snow stings in his bloody cuts, she's gone silent, he buckles now, knowing that everything he could have done has been done and still he feels like it's not enough. He stares at the red, the orange, the blackening brown.

"Merry," He whispers, and suddenly there's more colors, different sounds, he's still weak, but his cuts feel less intense, he's no longer on the verge of collapse, and the rocking of the lifeboat is no longer present, sturdy ground; semi-sturdy ground, a voice?

"Luffy! Get up, come on, come on!" He whips his head around, his vision blurs and merges, and there's Usopp, it's gotta be Usopp, with his long nose, but he looks different, really different.

Details are cast aside and he springs forward, clambers up the wall Usopp is standing at the top of, a rocky thing that he has to scrabble at for purchase, he doesn't feel like stretching. He's still sore, even though he's not on the verge of unconsciousness.

"Luffy! You idiot, what were you doing!" Usopp scolds as he mounts the wall, finally at the top "You looking to get ki-mph!"

"Usopp!" He gasps out, he can't help it, he really can't. Usopp is no longer on his crew, he knows this, he shouldn't accept him back without compensation, he knows this as well, But nothing can stop him from wrapping his arms around him and squeezing with everything he has left.

"Luffy!" Usopp gasps, his voice raspy "Please- loosen!" Luffy shakes his head furiously, slackening only the smallest increment. He doesn't dare let go. He'd lost one nakama today, another would not be slipping through his fingers.

Usopp groans and leans backward, losing his balance and falling onto his butt, Luffy still clinging tightly.

"I'm sorry Usopp, she, she had to go…"

"W-what?" He stutters as he tries to pull Luffy's arms looser.

"Merry," Usopp stops pulling, feels tears bud in his own eyes. "She was happy though, she said so. She could talk, she loved us." Luffy sniffles and Usopp hugs him back. "Usopp, don't leave."

He hesitates, and then resolutely pushes Luffy off of him. Meeting Luffy's teary gaze with his own moist eyes.

"I should apologize first," Luffy opens his mouth but Usopp shakes his head. "I shouldn't have doubted you, you were right."

"No, Merry was nakama, I shouldn't have,"

"Yes, you should have. Merry couldn't sail anymore, she knew that. She didn't want to fail us."

"She never failed us," Luffy agrees tersely. wholeheartedly. mournfully.

They stand for a few minutes, wrapped up in each other and their emotions, it's hard to say goodbye. Luffy hates goodbyes.

Finally, Usopp slumps, pulls tentatively away and Luffy doesn't want to loosen his grip anymore but he does, because he can't, he _won't_ force Usopp into anything he _honestly_ doesn't want to do. But… he thinks Usopp might be lying to himself.

"Hey, come on, just let go of me already, I've gotta talk to you."

"You are talking to me," He frowns into his sniper's shoulder, annoyed becuase he just wants to sit here for another moment, he aches, from Lucci and from the door guy that had bull horn hair, and- and just aches. The burden of a Captain is heavy.

Usopp lets out a breathy laugh, shakes his head.

"You were singing a different tune just an hour ago, come on, there's a volcano exploding, you wanna go see it, we're almost at the top."

"A volcano? But, there're no islands, Usopp-"

"It's weird and confusing but you'll get it, you always do." Usopp sighs and rifles through his bag with one hand. "Here, I, being the great Usopp-sama, thought of a way to provide proof that I'm telling the truth." He pulls out the tone dial and clicks the apex of the shell.

" _Cool! You're_ letting _me use a tone dial?"_ Luffy's voice warbles from the shell and the Luffy now clinging to Usopp's shoulders twists around to stare at it. " _I mean, you always keep them to yourself, stingy."_ Usopp's voice says something in the background and Luffy's voice makes a whiny petulant sound. " _Meat isn't the same as a shell. Stupid Usopp."_ He huffs than seems to remember he's recording. " _Oh, yeah, Usopp says that we're not actually at Water 7 anymore, it's some island in the New World. He also says I'm going to forget this ever happened soon, which is why he's making me record this. Weird. Hi, future me!"_ Usopp chuckles as the Luffy wrapped around him twists around to almost sit in his lap, making a confused noise as he turns the shell this way and that. " _So yeah, I shrunk or something stupid like that. I don't remember, I thought I was sitting on Merry's head after Usopp- nevermind, it doesn't matter. It_ doesn't." The voice goes steely and Usopp can't stop the relieved and happy smile that spreads when he hears the confidence in that statement. " _Because that was_ two years ago! _It's like time travel but just in my head, or something. I don't get it. But future me should listen to Usopp, because, I guess if I don't remember making the message than I really need convincing? But why would I forget? Usooooopp, it doesn't make sense!"_ Usopp's voice grumbles out of the shell again and Luffy continues, glib. " _So yeah! I gues that's it! Usopp, the volcano, look! If we don't hurry we're gonna miss the-"_ The shell cuts off and Luffy fiddles with it till he presses the apex again. " _Cool! You're_ letting _me use a tone dial?"_

Luffy grunts and listens to the message playing again while Usopp tries to move the boy off his knees, he's starting to lose circulation. Luffy scoots obediantly onto the dirt and Usopp stands, brushing himself off.

"Well, if that explains a few things…"

"Yeah, I guess." Luffy hums, handing back the shell before it finishes it's message. "Weird. Must be a mystery… mystery!" Luffy laughs and pushes himself to his feet, only to find his balance wobbling. He manages to maintain it and smiles at Usopp's suspicious look. "You know, cause we don't know _what's_ going on, so it's _all_ a myste- woah!" In trying to step forward his knees had given out and he'd found himself plummeting toward the ground, which was rock, he now noticed as his nose neared collision.

"Knew it!" Usopp wraps his arm around Luffy's and tugs hard, pulling his captain back into a standing position, but he doesn't release him, instead letting him lean against his shoulder. "Didn't you _just_ fight against Lucci? You're exhausted, idiot!"

"I'm okay!" Luffy protests, though he doesn't resist the help as Usopp wraps an arm around him. Usopp has a sneaking suspicion it's because he can't. "Just, a little tired. And sore. Fine." Luffy's face is set into determination as his mind runs through the events of the last few days, Robin, Usopp, CP9, Iceburg, Franky, Merry… Merry. Sadness wells up in his chest again and he shakes his head a little to try and disperse it. He doesn't want to worry about that now. Merry wouldn't want that…

"You're doing it again." Luffy blinks and glances up at the sniper who's staring down his nose at him, a look that borders on anger twinkling in his eyes.

"Doing what?"

"Hiding it. Out of sight, out of mind; is that what you think? You can't just pretend it's not there you know."

"Sure I can," Luffy answers before he realizes he has no idea what Usopp's talking about.

"What are we talking about?"

"Just-" He waves his hand around in the air, searching for the right words, it feels like a sensitive topic, but it needs to be said; apparently. _He_ never had to be taught how to be upset. "Your thoughts."

"I don't think a whole lot," Luffy tells him and Usopp slaps his palm against his face because he most certainly knows that already.

"I mean, you're upset and you're thinking about it but you aren't telling anyone," He elaborates helplessly, shifting to give Luffy a bit more support as they start to hike. In a split second decision he starts walking them down the mountain. "If you're trying to figure something out it's okay to talk about it."

Luffy seems to consider this for a moment before shaking his head.

"I don't want to," He says, voice level. "Everything works out fine in the end."

"But it _doesn't_ , not always!" Usopp protests and Luffy gives him a weird look.

"Sure it does, you can't say it doesn't because it hasn't ended yet. Hey I thought we were going up the volcano?"

"If you can't walk right just now how do you expect to hike up a mountain?" Usopp grumbles and Luffy laughs and leans a little more heavily on Usopp's shoulder, giggling.

"How do you keep smiling like that? It's not all right you know?" Usopp snaps, "Things aren't perfect right now, there's a volcano exploding, the marines are after us, you just lost your first ship." Luffy's face shifts into a more melancholy smile, peaceful mourning he supposes.

"If you wait for everything to be perfect then you'll never smile," Luffy tells him calmly, "If you never smile then what's missing is being happy. You guys worry too much."

"Yeah- well, well so do you!" Usopp fires back, stuttering, but he knows it's a weak return. He fumbles with his thoughts that he'd been so confident with. "There are times to smile and there are times when it's okay to be sad, because being happy all the time, being okay with things always means that you're never really really extra excited." He finishes lamely, and it's weak but Luffy is nodding, a frown marring his features.

"I guess, but I always feel really happy, and I like it like that, why should I change what works?" _Cause things like the Grand Line and devil fruits mess with reality and shrink you down to age seven._ Usopp thinks glumly but doesn't say anything. "Anyway, I'd rather be happy than sad, wouldn't you? So if I can I wanna be happy."

"I get that, just remember that you can't shove all the sad stuff off a cliff because that kind of stuff is resilient, it'll probably just drag you down with it." _It is dragging you down with it, I see you there._

"It could," Luffy agrees "But that's why I'm sad about Merry, because when it really matters I have to be sad or else I'm not respecting it. Merry deserves a lot of respect, don't you think?"

Usopp shakes his head forlornly. He just can't win.

"Yeah," He chuckles. "She definitely does."

 **~7~**

Something deep in his gut turns ugly and the sense of forebearing casts a heavy shadow of impending doom. Usopp stops walking and stiffens.

" _Usopp!"_ He winces as the shriek tears through the air, she's hurtling down the hill, running full tilt, her climatact clenched tight in one hand. " _This is_ all _your fault!"_

"Nami!" He turns around as Luffy twists in his grip, trying to see his navigator, he holds up a hand in greeting.

"Yo-" _Smack._ Nami rams her climatact's end into Luffy's face, which pushes him out of Usopp's grip and onto the ground, a red mark spreading across his face where the metal smacked.

"Hey!" He yells, shaking his fist as he struggles to sit up, "What'd you do that for!"

"You stay down!" Nami hisses at him and he almost shrinks away from her fury, almost. "And you," She rounds on Usopp "'Finish the hike' you said 'We'll meet you at the top' you said. _Where_ do you think _you're_ going? Down the mountain? You were supposed to _meet me_ , idiot! Inconsiderate deserter! You left a lady defenseless! Oh, wait till Sanji get's his _feet_ in your _face_!" Usopp sputters as Nami wrings him out with rapid fire insults and a sharp looking pointer finger, strangely she doesn't strike. "Lucky for you I've got marines on my tail so I need you capable of _walking_ so you can beat them up for me!"

"Oh yes, very lucky!" Usopp squeaks and Nami nods, still fuming. She sniffs than looks down at Luffy again, who is staring at her.

"What's wrong with you?" She snaps.

"Nothing!" Luffy grunts, goping to get up "I'm fine-"

"Like heck, Usopp what's wrong with him?" She holds out her climatact and puts the tip against his forehead, keeping him from getting up as he swipes at it and growls.

"Lucci." He answers glumly and Nami nods again, all bussiness.

"You and me are going to hide in a tree." She says to Luffy who sputters before being dragged off into the treeline, "And you!" She calls over her shoulder, "Get rid of my tail! Now grab that branch up there, come on, the one way up, stretch!"

While Nami and Luffy climb the tree the first wave of marines comes over the hill and Usopp almost drops his kabuto because _shoot_ that's more than a tail that's a freaking hunting party. No that's a _platoon._ _Crap._

 **~7~**

"That way! I can smell them that way!" Chopper points wildly and tries to make his voice heard over the rev of the FRU-IV Black Rhino as Franky pilots it up the moutain, leaping over ditches and glancing off trees as they find there way through by smell. It's hard to smell anything but soda with the cola motors running full power.

"Left?" Franky yells in reply and Robin shouts beside him:

"Correct!" as he swerves to make the change in their course. Chopper can hear Sanji kicking the air right above him, there's hardly enough space on the motorcycle so Brook and Sanji had had to run along. It wasn't a problem, they were both plenty fast. Though he hadn't heard Brook laughing for a little bit, he hopes he didn't get lost.

"I've found them!" Robin's lips bloom beside his ear and he titches as she speaks, "Up ahead, around the bend and at the bottom of the hill." She pauses, "A lot of marines, Usopp is holding them off for now, he seems to be… hm, yes, Luffy and Nami are hiding in a tree."

"Luffy is?" Chopper repeats, fearful that his energetic captain is refraining from a fight but also relieved that he won't be hurting himself.

"Nami seems to be forcing his hand." Robin explains and Chopper breathes a sigh of relief.

"Let's SUUUUPERRR STORM THIS PARTY!" Franky sounds a bit like he's yodeling as he revs the engines again and weaves through the next set of obstacles, flying over the next ridge and barrelling into a turn around the bend.

Chopper has a split second thought of what Usopp is going to think as he watches the motorcycle fly over the top of the hill, Franky's "OW! WATCH OUT FOR THE SUUUUPER CAVALRY!" echoing across the small battlefield. But then they've landed and the marines are all over the place and even if they're too shocked to attack quite yet that just means that he ought to use this time to get a few debilitating hits in.

So he does, he shifts into heavy point and starts smashing heads together while Robin crosses her arms and several of the marines who carry rifles find their weapons being tossed into a pile, where an instant later Sanji lands, steel plated shoes stomping hard on all each and every one.

"I heard someone ordered take out." He breathes out a heavy plume of smoke before scrubbing out the finished cigarette on a nearby marine's shirt. Chopper kind of wants to die from the coolness.

"Guys!" Usopp cheers with a relieved sort of sag, "Oh, thank you, thank yooouuuuuu!"

"No prob, Uso-bro!" Franky flashes him a thumbs up and grins "It's what we're here for!"

"Usopp, I suggest you hide in a tree in order to snipe because being in plain sight often leads to snipers being marked as high priority kill targets." Robin advises and Usopp 'eeps' as he gathers up a few pop greens he'd dropped and hightails it for cover. Chopper tries to refocus on the fight, but Brook still isn't here, and maybe the skeleton, light as he is, wasn't fast enough to keep up with Franky's _awesome_ robot motorcycle?

His fears prove unfounded as Brook yohohoho's his way into the fight, bow striking up a storm of notes that bang and clash against each other in Chopper's sensitive ears but seem to serve their purpose as the marine's attention is caught. And, and behind him is Zoro! Brook found Zoro! Chopper breathes another sigh of relief and shifts into kung fu point so he can go into his more skillful attacks.

Things are going to be fine, Chopper realizes as Zoro blows by him, swords crossed and attack names flying from his lips as the blades swirl. They have to be because look! Culmination! It must be the end because it's a huge fight and Sanji's foot is aflame and setting marine uniforms aflame along with it. They're all together and it won't be long surely, since Usopp has turned the battlefield into an unkept garden. Perhaps he can stop worrying about blood pressure and blood loss for a little whil now because just look at the storm clouds gathering overhead! At the many hands holding swords, each armed hand branching into fingers that are decorated with identical fingerprints.

And he knows Usopp always says not to jinx things, not to ask questions that he doesn't want to know the answer to, but in his head, surely, it's alright?

What could go wrong here?

And that is when it does.

 **~7~**

"Haha! No one minds the weather except a good navigator, shows them what's important on these seas." Nami cheers quietly to herself again and Luffy cranes his head over the branch, watching as his nakama duke it out with the marine squadron that had been following Nami. He's not entirely sure where they all came from, his nakama, not the marines, marines are kind of endless at times. But his nakama, they... Are awesome. Apparently Franky is on his crew now, and a skeleton- a _skeketon._ Who is playing _music_ , which meant he is a _musician_. Plus all of his crew look really cool, older and stronger and different but still clearly them. It's nice to see. Merry left, but they've all continued and gotten even stronger, gone even farther, she would've liked that.

"Alright Luffy," Nami turns to him and wags a finger around his nose. "I'm going to go down there and pick those loser's pockets clean. You stay here. Right. Here. Clear?" He nods and she casts a suspicious look over him before grabbing his arm and using it to rappel down the tree, he watches her sneak off into the chaos and tracks her by her orange hair ducking and weaving through the white caps.

He can track all of them like that, actually. There's Franky with the blue (though he towers over everyone and is riding a red and yellow motorcycle so he could see him with or without blue hair) and there's Chopper with the blue and pink hat, Brook with the afro, Sanji with the blond. He can pick out Usopp's hat from all the plain standard issue caps. Robin has black hair but she never gets too close to marines, maintaining a safe buffer-zone between her actual body and the fighting. Oh, and there's Zoro! Green!

He leans back against the tree, watching them fight, a breeze blows by and he laughs to himself, it's a good day, sunny. It makes all the trees look greener.

He only closes his eyes for a second but when he looks back the tide has shifted, or is shifting, quickly. The marines had reinforcements, apparently, and the white caps are taking over the color, there are just too many to fit on the battlefield, too much white. He notices the green disappear first, then the afro dropped into the white, then Usopp's hat is knocked off and he can't follow him at all because a lot of the white caps have fallen off too. Luffy blinks, watching, his fists tightened unconsciously. Sanji lets out a furious yell and Luffy's attention snaps to him as he drops to get below a sword swipe but doesn't pop back up right away, and then another familiar yell Franky's loud "SUUUPPPERRRR" and Luffy's attention is caught into that, he's trying to keep an eye on all fo them now, the Nami is trying to weave her way back through to him but she's forced down under the white as well. Chopper's heavy point is bigger now, but when he shrinks to a different form Luffy loses sight of him, Chopper's too short. He focuses his attention on Robin, some part of him is thinking they're all fine, that it's just a fight, that they're all going to reappear in just a second and he should keep looking. He doesn't move to take his eyes off Robin though, and so he sees the exact moment when she turns and stumbles for half a step and a man with a long coat jumps forward…

He doesn't look anymore, he can't see, only the green, the green is still there, it's light and summery and happy and he can't help but want it all to go away, because- because…

Gone. Nothing more than a quiet 'pop'. It shouldn't be possible, to have it all ripped away so quickly. _And Ace._ A voice says but his panic quickly overrides it, his current problem, his burden as Captain has suddenly grown unbearable, or maybe it's because it's because it's been taken away, because he can no longer carry it because he's dropped it and it's _broken._

The bubbles float peacefully, but he feels like he's thrashing inside one of them, unable to escape. He's trapped inside this bubble of panic and he can't do anything to rationalize a solution, to fight, he's defenseless. He stumbles forward a step, his knees buckle, dig into the grass as he collapses upon himself. He can't hold himself up. He caves in, he's hollow.

"What- what's wrong with me?" He finds his voice breaking, he chokes a sob out of the way so he can speak. "Why-?"

Kuma is standing over him, speaking, he had thought, but he can't hear anything, nothing but the popping of the bubbles, the popping of Kuma's devil fruit powers at work. He chokes again on the sorrow in his throat, burrows his head into the ground, not bothering to swipe away his tears, just allowing them to fall and 'plop' to the ground.

In an instant everything fades, and simultaneously grows bright.

 **~7~**

"Back _off_ already! Stupid, weakling- crap."

"What? Crap what?"

"Luffy's not in the tree."

"Crap."

"That's what I just said."

"Don't be stupid, this is really bad!"

"I _know_ that, I'll go find him."

"Oh, no, I don't want to hear that from you!"

" _What?"_

"Travel safely~ Bon Voyage~"

"Shut up,"

"Oi, wait, you're actually leaving me here? Zoro! I might die!"

"Not my problem."

"Cold!"

Zoro ducks beneath an erratic sword swing and slashes at the opening the marine had left to his abdomen, half cutting and half pushing the living obstacle out of the way. Usopp is still complaining behind him but he's decided to stop listening, waste of time and focus that he needs to figure out a way through these marines. He doesn't have enough space to set up a flying slash, and he doesn't want that kind of attention anyhow. Oh hey, what about… He sheathes his swords and steps aside pointing.

"Usopp, make a path."

"What!" The sniper straightens and shrieks, "You want me to clear a path? That's your job!"

"Hurry up, they're filling in," Zoro gestures and Usopp growls before holding out his kabuto and yelling "Skull Bomb Grass!"

The boom resounds across the battlefield and the nearest marines scatter (or are blown away) and Usopp 'harump's, crossing his arms and nodding.

"There, a path, happy?"

"No, I wanted something inconspicuous!"

" _Then why did you come to_ me!" Zoro ignores him and traipses off down the cleared way (more or less cleared he should say, he keeps having to step over bodies.) but he quickly turns because he's pretty sure there's a gap between those marines that he's supposed to go through…

"No, bad Zoro!" Usopp's hands are on his shoulders and straining to turn him around, he turns with a nincomittal growl.

"Get your hands off, I'm fine. You're stupid path is twisty."

"No, it's a circle that you have to walk the diameter of, just go straight."

In this haphazard manner the span of the battlefield is traversed, and Usopp tells Zoro as they reach the end that he'd rather guide Luffy across a fight then Zoro any day. Zoro smirks because that's one heck of an achievement.

"RAH!" An overconfident marine with a set of brass knuckles surges forward and swung for Usopp's chin, who in answer shrieks and ducks, stumbling forward and tripping through the final thin layer of marines who made up the fringes of the battle. Zoro unsheathes a sword and sends the audacious marine flailing, then turns to follow after Usopp, immediately on guard as he hears the sniper's yelp.

"Ow… I tripped on something around here." Usopp complains as Zoro slashes through the thin perimeter of marines. "Er, in there." He points back into the fray but Zoro's stopped listening again, he's looking around but Luffy isn't around, not on the ground, not hiding somewhere (that he can see) and when he looks up he's not in the tree either.

"Usopp, did you get us lost?" Zoro demands and Usopp answers with a squawk of indignation which Zoro also ignores.

"No, I didn't." Usopp grinds out, getting to his feet and beginning to look around as well. "But Luffy isn't here… He was right up on that branch, if he'd fallen he'd be around here."

"He probably got tired of watching and jumped in."

"No, he's all the way up to Enies Lobby now, his body thinks he just fought Lucci. He's ready to fall asleep." They stand for a moment before realization strikes simutaneously.

"Hey… How far do you think rubber would make him bounce?" Usopp whimpers.

"Shoot!" Zoro leaps forward with his swords bared, slicing through the marines and scowering the ground, for a flash of red or yellow.

"I've captured Straw Hat Luffy!" The yell rings across the battlefield and captures all of the fighter's attention instantly, Zoro swivels with a snarl and bursts forward, trying to follow the voice to its source. "Straw Hats! Surrender if you want him to die on an execution stand instead of before your eyes!" Zoro can hear them all moving, forging their own paths through the suffocating white and streaming towards the voice, towards Luffy's voice too, Luffy who is _whimpering._ No, Zoro won't believe that, he's hearing wrong.

But the desperate murmur escalates into a mutter, and then a continuous moan, before finally turning into understandable words, the tone of furious insistence.

Zoro bursts through at the same time as the rest of them, but by that time it doesn't seem to matter that much. For a second Luffy is limp in the hands of a burly marine, a knife blade biting shallow gashes into his neck, and the next he's twisted around with the blade of the knife between his teeth and has a fist imbedded in the man's face.

"ERE ARE EY?" He demands around the dagger, staggering for a moment before he pulls it out of his mouth and swipes it around as another marine charges forward to attack. "I SAID, WHERE ARE THEY?" He demands, stalking forward as the wall of enemies tightens. "KUMA WORKS FOR THE MARINES, DOESN'T HE? _DOESN'T HE?_ WHERE DID HE GO?"

"Kuma isn't-" One man stutters but falters as Luffy sweeps around in a precarious step towards him, the dagger brandished wildly.

" _Where?"_ He hisses and they all feel the wave of accidental conquerer's haki that rushes forward. The marine faints, Luffy stumbles around again.

The battelfield that had been loud with clashing swords and yells of pain moments before has dropped to a grave yard's hush, Luffy the only one speaking, demanding. Zoro clenches his hands on his swords and carefully reaches up, taking Wado from his tightened jaw.

"Luffy." He says and Luffy swivels on unsteady feet to look, his eyes blown wide and jaw clenched as tears steadily course down his cheeks. He looks like he's seven again, helpless and lost and scared. A captain shouldn't look like that, a captain should be strong and fearless. So Zoro swears that his captain won't ever look like that again. "We're right here."

"Zoro…" Luffy's face relaxes and it's not a full blown smile, not even close, just a broken cresent sliver that is hanging by a thread. "You're alright, you're all alright, good…" He gives a weak little laugh and Zoro's expression tightens as a both dauntless and foolhardy marine shifts and moves to strike.

"Platanus Shuriken!" Usopp calls and sharp blurs of green shoot past Zoro's ear and over Luffy's shoulder, biting through the marine's clothes and shallow cuts into his skin. He cries out and retreats. Luffy doesn't move.

"I'm sorry guys," He starts, taking a wavering step toward them, seemingly drinking up the sight of them. "I guess I messed up there." He dropped the knife and it made a light thud as its handle met the ground. "I must've been seeing things… Weirdest dream…" He's murmuring again, talking to himself while the crew keeps a close eye on the crowd of marines, dealing out murderous gazes. None of them should be seeing this, Straw Hat Luffy's moments of weakness. Once their captain is out of the way the marines are all goners.

"A weird dream?" Robin prompts, though her expression remains steely towards the enemies.

"Yeah, there was a bear-guy, and his devil fruit, he made you guys- you guys disappeared." The tightness in his voice is well disguised but not enough to hide it from them. "But, but I think it was real too…" His steps are getting slower, Zoro curses inwardly. _Don't stop yet, come on, a few more steps._ You're almost to us. He wants to say, but he doesn't.

"You look different, Zoro, what happened to your eye?" Zoro tightens his jaw but there's no sword there to hold and no enemy to fight. "Zoro? Guys?"

Marines are cowards, and cowards are not only defined by their affinity to running away.

The wall of white surges into a wave, the entire thing made of broken water, frothing rapids, Luffy doesn't turn, he's still eraptured, by them, by he simplicity behind having nakama to look at and hold and keep close.

Zoro can sympathize, they all can, because recently they've all realized that they ought to have held him closer.

"Luffy, duck!" Zoro hears someone yell, it might be Usopp but it could have been Chopper, they both get really shrill when they're nervous. Sanji curses in a long string of words finishing with "Get down, you moron!" And Zoro scoffs because if that's what he wanted he should have just said so.

Luffy does, though it's mostly by accident, he missteps and dips into it for a moment and that moment affords Usopp a shot and a marine an emprty swipe of a sword. Luffy's face twists as though he's remembering he has marines behind him, but he doesn't change his pace, not his direction.

"Hey, cretin! Stop standing there like a pile of useless plant matter and grow a little faster!" Sanji shoves him from behind and he starts off, shoving his sword back into his mouth. "Grow in the right way, oaf!" He switches direction.

The battle is shifting, had shifted. What had started out as an easy paced fight became hard, which then fell into stillness which has now grown into desperation. The crew, desperate to reach and protect their captain, the marines, desprately attempting to find a foothold in the chaos that is a fight with the straw hat pirates when they have something very important to fight for, and Luffy, desperate to keep every last one of his nakama in his sight.

To a bystander it would have appeared as some twisted game of whack-a-mole. The colorful heads would all be sticking up and then one would drop and their name would be shrieked out over the clamor of the fight. "SANJI!" And the blond would rocket upward, launching into a series of high kicks that seem slightly strained, as though he hadn't been prepared for the move. And then the tip of Chopper's hat would fall beneath the white and his name would be howled and inexplicibly the reindeer would shift into one of his larger or taller forms.

And at one point or another Luffy stopped having to yell, because they were all there, they'd all found their way through the fray to his side and he had to only reach out and they were there.

His sigh of relief is loud even over the pandemonium, or at least it is to those eight sets of ears (seven if you want to get specific about Brook).

"Guys…" He breathes, laughs lightly, breathlessly. "I- sorry… I won't let that happen again, sorry…"

"Shut up," Sanji spits out, twisting around to face his captain, Franky and Brook fill in the hole he temporarily leaves. "Don't you start saying that was your fault, Kuma, because he wasn't. There was nothing you could have done."

"Nothing at all," Usopp agrees in a shout, Luffy's face crumples a little in displeasure.

"There was, there should have been." He says quietly and Sanji strides forward and pokes Luffy's forehead with his finger.

"There isn't much in there, Captain." He starts, chewing irritably on the end of his burned out cigarette. "But there's a heck of a lot in here." He moves his hand downward and jabs at Luffy's chest. "So don't _think_ so much and listen to us telling you that what you did was your best, and what we did was our best. It's not something to be proud of, but there's nothing to regret. Call it unlucky, call it skillful on the marine's part, heck, call it fate. But don't you start calling it your mistake."

Luffy shifts slightly, peering up past the brim of his hat and at the fringe of hair that covers half of Sanji's face. He gives him a wobbly smile and tips forward, wrapping his arms around the older man's torso and burying his face in his dressy jacket. Sanji pushes the straw hat back into place and adjusts his cigarette with one hand to hide his smile.

"Sanji, your eyebrow… is really cool!" Luffy sputters and Sanji throws him off with an angry snarl.

"Geez, crap Captain, you're so thick." He grumbles and Luffy snickers, splayed out sloppily in the grass. "You get what I mean, right?"

"Yeah, thanks, Sanji." Luffy practically glows with the radiance of the true gleaming smile that he now wears and Sanji nods curtly, backing back into the fight without another word as Luffy finds hi footing and then his place, slipping, just a little wobbly now into the sliver of space between Zoro and Nami that cracks open wider to leave room for him.

The circle feels complete with ten people making up the edge, and it's more sturdy, even though it no longer has a solid core.

"Very true, Sanji-san." Brook murmurs as he lunges forward with a splintering stab motion, "He has such a huge heart. I envy him, for I have none at all!"

"Don't say that Brook," Robin interjects "Your heart is very much there in spirit."

"Ah, yes! I have enough spirit to go around!" He realizes with a start, "For I am made entirely of bones and held together by my spirit!"

"We know," Nami deadpans and Luffy laughs loud and clear.

"Skull joke!" Both he and Brook cry and the yell rings around them as the first truly carefree thing Luffy has said all day.


	9. More than one way to stitch up a wound

**Hey guys, welcome to the last chapter, if you've read this far, thanks so much for sticking with me, I know it's not exactly perfect, but hopefully you're getting something out of it! This is just some quick 'thank you's and an even quicker reminder.**

 **Reminder: Please leave a review as you run out of words to scroll through; there's a convenient little box down there so if you think this story needs more words you can add them yourself. I'd appreciate it a ton because I've kind of been working on this for several months now. Thanks so much.**

 **And the thanks, oh who to thank first? Well my Dad helped we with an analogy back in chapter 4 the other day and he insists on getting credit for that, so there, thanks Dad!**

 **Other than my parents and my Baba (grandmother) in particular I have online people to thank profusely. My dearest penpal/conversationalist/eye to the world/beta crazyrubsoff, who pointed out several points that I wouldn't have improved nor been able to improve without her assistance. Also, my second beta, (as neither were able to make it all the way through I had both looking at it) (yes it needed that much help) Ille Somnia deserves a copious thanks, both of them do! Thanks guys! *waves***

 **Finally, this is a Big Bang, so of course I must thank Bea for organizing this whole thing and my artist, Alex, who's art I will be posting a link to in both my profile and right here in this author's note the moment I am able to provide it. Thanks so much! It's been a great (trying/tiring/good-kind-of-exhausting-like-at-a-sleep-over) experience and I owe you guys a lot for that.**

 **Please enjoy the final chapter, (if you've stuck around this long) and be kind should you choose to leave a review (not that I can really complain, beggars can't be choosers, hm?)**

 **Bye ;)**

 **~8~**

"Is it over yet?" Luffy moans.

"No." Zoro replies gruffly and Nami mutters something under her breath.

"Is it now?"

"Not yet!" Usopp sing-songs though irritation wears on his tone.

"Now?"

"No, for goodness sakes stop asking!" Nami seethes, taking out her anger out on the closest marine. Luffy shrinks away from her and mumbles to himself quietly, sticking out his bottom lip in a pout.

"What's wrong with you anyway?" Franky queries and Luffy shrugs. "It's not very super to just sit on the sidelines bro."

"It's also rather unusual for you, you aren't mortally injured are you?"

"Ah! Robin don't joke like that, Luffy, let me check!"

"I'm not injured, well, I don't think…" Luffy evades the subject, pursing his lips and whistling nervously. "A little sore, but, I like watching you guys fight…"

After Luffy had joined them in the fight against the marines the direness of it seemed to fade considerably, besides, it was definitely a deal breaker on the marine's morale. Nothing like a come back by their trump card. But it hadn't lasted for more than fifteen minutes, at some point Luffy had withdrawn from the front lines, stretching his arms past his nakama to make his punches. The more time passed the less he contributed, slowly receding back to the center of the defensive circle where he now sat, slouched backwards and a little flushed from the brawl. He waves Chopper away as the little doctor bustles toward him, a roll of bandages impending.

"I'm okay…" He flinches as he shifts and Chopper's gaze sharpens with a new kind of ferocity.

"Sit still," The doctor commands and Luffy stiffens with a frown, remaining still as a statue as the reindeer shrinks down into his smallest form an unbuttons Luffy's shirt. He peels away the cloth that he now notices is wet with sweat and narrows his eyes as he inspects his captain's chest, jerking backward with a gasp of surprise after his initial glimpse. "Luffy…"

"What?" He asks, only slightly guarded, more of a forced chipperness.

"How… when did this happen?" Chopper's voice shakes and Nami peels away from the fight to inspect what put the young doctor in such a bewildered state.

"I don't really know, my chest just kind of started hurting a little while ago and I got really hot…" Luffy shrugs again, but you were in the middle of something so…"

"How much does it hurt?" Chopper presses, digging through his medical bag furiously, looking for something other than the pile of bandages that he's already stacked in a haphazard heap beside his patient. "What kind of hurt?"

"It burns," Luffy says plainly. "A lot."

"What bur- OH MY GOSH YOUR SCAR!" Nami screeches as she peers closer and gets her first sight of the enflamed, pinkish yellow skin that is stretched across Luffy's chest like a swath of desert wasteland.

"Hush up, witch." Zoro growls behind her and Nami throws a hand over her mouth, sinking down into a kneel and staring straight at Luffy's chest which just seems more gruesome the more she looks at it. She shouldn't have screamed but she'd been surprised! That's the excuse she decides on anyway, because she'll probably need one, what a rookie mistake; advertising her crew mate's injury.

Not that those blundering goons stood a chance at getting a hit on Luffy right now, no chance in heck.

"A burn." Chopper repeats as he seems to find what he's been looking for, a sealed bag of dried up leaves, bottle of water and a shallow bowl. It's almost dizzying to watch him mix up a salve fast enough to make Luffy's second gear look slow, the paste takes on a gunky texture and a heavy green color, like the veggie shakes she sees advertised on some islands. "It's almost healed up already…" He murmurs to himself and Nami gapes at him.

"You call that almost healed?" She whispers, aghast. Chopper nods grimly.

"If I'm estimating what this looked like to start with, yeah, this is nothing short of a miracle." He reaches out and sets his hoof on Luffy's forehead, who startles out of staring at nothing and almost jerks away. "Hold still," Chopper commands and Luffy complies with a grumble. After a moment Chopper pulls his hoof back and adds another kind of leaf to the mix, pounding the dried up crinkly substance into the mush. "You've got a fever, this yellow here is probably infection, and obviously there's some sort of painkiller in your system because this should feel like more than a burn."

"But it is a burn, isn't it?" Nami asks and he nods after a moment.

"It is, but it's not just a burn, there's a puncture wound in it too, it's a deep wound, deep enough to burn thr-"

"Okay, that's good!" Nami holds up her hands and scooches away, still casting a worried glance at her captain who's gradually becoming torpid. He plays with the fingernails on one hand for a moment before glancing blearily up at them, a warm and fuzzy smile snuggling into his features.

"Hey, we're going back to Sunny soon, right? Na, Sunny's probably waiting for us." He moves to get up and Chopper catches his hand and scolds him while Nami sneaks a final glance at the raw skin on his chest before standing up and darting back into the brawl, she's not going to touch that right now.

They all know only roughly where the scar came from, the war. They all know that it's a burn, and they all know that it takes a heck of a lot to scar a rubber man.

The fact that it's appeared now, when Luffy's mind is still caught up in Saobody can only mean one thing, a thing she'd never even contemplated.

Marineford is coming.

~8~

None of them see it coming, that's the bad side of a battle like this, everyone gets wrapped up in the seconds that are passing like hours and all of a sudden things that were happening at a normal pace catch up to those who had been caught irrevocably in the clutches of adrenaline and the fear and the frenzy.

So yeah, none of them see it coming, it is unpredictable and it is sudden and it stops the fight in its tracks but it does not by any means stop the fighters, rather it spurs them on.

It sounds like a belch.

Heat and flames erupt without warning from the tip of the volcano and the sudden stench of sulfur and ashes sweeps downward with a thick billow of smoke. The mountain seems to surge as it bursts its insides outward, apparently a step past nauseous as it spews out lava and smoke and flame, blasting upward in a dramatic fountain of fire.

It has the same effect of a gun shot at the start of a race.

"Move!" Sanji darts forward and scoops up Luffy, Robin grabbing Chopper and Nami snatching the medical bag as the field hospital goes on the road.

"Whoa!" Luffy shouts in Sanji's ear, staring over his shoulder as the cook lengthens his stride into a distance runner's sprint. "That's! That's… A lot of fire...!"

"Here's your stuff Chopper," Nami hands the bag to Chopper as Franky reaches down and lifts Robin on to one of his huge shoulders.

"Thanks," He sighs, slipping the straps over his shoulders and yellling over at Sanji, "Be careful with Luffy!"

"I got it!" He growls in response even as Luffy seems to be trying his best to maneuver himself so that he's in front of Sanji's face, staring wide eyed at the explosion, a look of awe spreading over his face. "Would you move?" He snaps and pushes Luffy around until he's clinging to his back, neck twisted unnaturally so as to get the full picture.

"This way Zoro!" Usopp insists, gasping as they fall behind because he may be the fastest runner other than Sanji or Brook but he's also dragging some serious deadweight, or, misdirected weight. "You have to run away from things that burn, Zoro! Common sense!"

"Yohoho, I wonder, ivory is made from an elephant's tusk and an elephant's tusk is bone." Brook muses as he runs cheerily, darting through the stream of marines that are stampeding with much less success than the Straw Hats. "Ivory is inflammable, could I be? Fireproof? Oh but it would burn my skin! But I have no skin… Would it burn my bone?"

"Human bones don't have dentin in them Brook," Chopper answers absently, riffling through his bag again. "Dentin is what classifies something as ivory, so no, you're still very flammable… Your teeth have dentin in them."

"Alas! I have removed so much of me that burns! But I cannot remove enough!" Brook chokes out tearfully and Usopp shakes his arm as he passes, yelling:

"Not now Brook!"

"I thought the volcano was pretty much safe?" Nami wails and Robin looks back to observe the explosion, the lava is now coursing down the hillside towards them, as well as flying through the air.

"Is it not very similar to the Smilies on Punk Hazard?" She observes "though these likely have no consciousness, unless the volcano ate a devil fruit and we've angered it?" She puts a hand to her cheek as she watches the disaster roll out. "In which case I suppose we'll all either be consumed by fire or encased in a solid layer of ash. I read once of a city that succumbed to such a fate. Their faces are preserved in eternal expressions of anguish." She laughs and Usopp rages at her for a second while Brook begins to cry again.

"I don't want to die! Ah! But I am already dead." He thinks for a moment. "My, I wonder if the afterlife has changed much since I last visited, more ice perhaps?"

"Don't say creepy things like that, both of you!" Usopp screams and Luffy laughs at them, though it's a bit wheezy, the smoke is around them, clouding in billowing smoggy curtains of ash. Luffy begins to hack and Chopper makes a nervous noise, Zoro curses.

"You don't really think the volcano ate a devil fruit, do you?" Nami asks anxiously and Robin shakes her head marginally.

"More likely nature is simply taking its course, lava has been carving down the sides of this mountain for millenia, I imagine a part of the rock simply gave way and a new path is being forged."

"Just our luck." Usopp grumbles.

"More like misfortune." Robin smiles and he hisses.

"I hope you're happy, Luffy, you get to see the volcano explode after all!" Usopp throws up his arms in exasperation, "You just always get what you want!"

"Not always," Luffy murmurs, seeming to fade as he lets his face twist back around and pillows his head and Sanji's shoulder blade.

And somewhere deeper inside himself he feels the truth of that statement.

~8~

Images swirl and Luffy sways on his feet, the smell is putrid, the heat pulsing; his body aches and burns. Ace, there is a lot of Ace, Ace running, Ace kneeling, Ace yelling, Ace bloodied and falling and Luffy reaching forward and catching him. With a jolt the perspective shifts and Luffy is lost for a moment as his hands brush over Ace's skin and around his back, where there wasn't any skin. He lifts his hand away for a moment, confused as to why he couldn't feel the warmth of his brother's back, and his gaze slides awkwardly over the crimson color that coated his hand like a slimy glove, oily liquid dripping off his palm.

"Ace…" He stutters and clutches at his brother's shoulders, speaking on the edge of hs breath.

"Sorry Luffy…" He gasps, cringes and coughs a wet sound, Luffy feels the heat as more blood falls away.

"Ace…"

"I can't speak loud enough for the others to hear it," He interrupts, plows forward doggedly and some part of Luffy is screaming, shaking and pulling away and trying not to listen. Some part of him understands that these are Ace's last words. "But… Old man… Everyone… and you, Luffy…"

"Even though, I'm so worthless…" Worthless? Luffy wants to scream, You're not! I would have been alone without you! I needed you, I still need you. You're worth so much… "Even though I carry the blood of a demon…" So what? You think I care? You think anyone that matters cares? You can't leave like this, you can't- "Thank you." No. No no no no! Stop, stop it right now. "For loving-" STOP. "Me."

He feels the heat fleet, feels it roiling beneath his touch because his brother is on fire. He knows though, the same way Nami knows when it's going to rain, he knows that something is gone from him, something has been taken. He's lost something precious. And because what he values is no longer there he drops it, because now, what is it? A burning body, without any will or ability of its own. Ace is dead, he's not there anymore.

And a moment later neither is Luffy.

His mind is at war, his brain is broiling, thoughts bubbling uncontrollably, time passing in an endless downward spiraling reel.

Ji-Ji, Iva-chan, Whitebeard, Akainu.

Marco, Buggy, Aokiji, Shanks?

Traffy, Hancock, Jinbe, Rayleigh?

Places and scenes roll by, never ending, words merge into one another and sentences switch voices halfway through. "Count what you have left!" Nothing, I have nothing left. He wants to say, but he's not a liar and he won't pretend to be. He can't say something either because that's not what they are anymore, and he doesn't have them anymore anyway. They're somewhere, but he doesn't have them, they're all broken apart. Broken because he let them all shatter. He doesn't deserve to hold something so precious if he can't take care of it, heck, he can't protect his brother, he can't even protect himself.

He thinks of them and he's so lost, he can't help himself, he wants them, needs them. He doesn't deserve them but he'll take them because they'll come and because everything is so dark and they're the only he things he can see that shine.

They deserve more but he's so selfish and he'll take them and he cries as he counts his meager but oh so valuable remaining sources of happiness.

"I want to see them!" He cries, though the words feel distantly spoken, raw and too true to have close. He wants to see them, he has to apologize, explain, find a way to make things right. "I want to see them right now!" He wants to hold what he has left.

And somehow, he does.

In a swirl of heat turned warmth and tears turned sweat and a blur of images that he suddenly realizes is him moving, or his body being moved, because the world is passing in swipes of images that are slower than they had been a moment ago but somehow are more nauseating.

"Ng," He says and his mouth feels like a hollow cave getting a breath of fresh air, but he'd been breathing, hadn't he? He feels the warmth shift underneath him and he realizes he's riding something, no, being carried by something. The next breath clarifies the world and he tightens every muscle in his worn and broken body to try and cling to one of the eight things he has to live for.

The air is full of putrid natural smoke, but much more important is the thready sultry smoke of Sanji's cigarettes.

"Oi, Luffy, loosen up, I can't run right." Sanji grumbles and Luffy forces the knot in his stomach to uncoil, and when those bonds lose their rock hard tension so does the rest of his body in an all consuming sense of relief.

"Sanji…" He can't quite keep himself still, fidgeting on his back as he tries to see and hear and feel his nakama. He wants to know how Sanji got here, but he also just wants to revel in his presence. Luffy buries his face in the back of Sanji's coat, it smells like the laundry detergent Nami picked up on the last island, posy scented, he thinks she said.

"Doin okay back there?" Sanji asks and after a moment Luffy nods in response. No, he's really not, but even not okay feels so much better than what he's been feeling (lost in the dark) that this new feeling (lost in the dark with someone holding his hand) is something like heaven.

"Good," Sanji grunts and Luffy feels his shoulders loosen.

"Sanji, where are we going?"

"Back to the Sunny."

"Sunny's here?" He jolts backward and the world spins, he feels only slightly sick. Hey, was Jinbe still here? "Is Jinbe here?"

"No, why would Jinbe be here?" He twists rapidly, his heart in his throat as he looks behind him and he realizes that Sanji isn't the only one here. They're all here. Nami is the one asking the question and he focuses on her first because he's got to answer the question right? He does. Her hair is longer than usual, but she's been growing it out for a while…

"'Cause he was a second ago." He manages and she looks at him strangely before something like understanding comes over her face.

"Luffy you look like death," Usopp gasps and comes closer, his nose almost poking Luffy in the face as he bobs up and down, they're all running, what are they running from?

"What are we running from?"

"Lava." Sanji grunts and Luffy freezes in place, feeling an inferno flare up inside and begin to slowly singe his insides, soon he would be alight, he knows this, he knows this and there is nothing he can do to prevent it. Nothing at all.

"L-Lava?" He repeats and with the word memories filter through his mind on endless repeat. A long coat, a fight doused in flames and heat, a drifting card, a rolling red bead.

"-hey, hey Luffy are you listening."

"-yeah." He coughs and he suddenly realizes that the smoke is getting thicker, he's suddenly having trouble breathing.

"-ffy look at me!" He starts and looks up, his head had been dipping, Chopper's here now, that's good. "Luffy, how many fingers am I holding up?" Chopper holds up a quavering hoof and Luffy frowns at him, confusion warring with his desperation.

"None, Chopper, you don't have fingers."

"Oh, right. Usopp, hold up some fingers."

"I'm running right now! And carrying you! He can't get a concussion anyway, he's rubber!"

"Well, something's wrong."

Oh, they're worried.

"I'm scared." He tells them bluntly and Chopper's worried expression disappears, along with the rest of Chopper because Usopp has tripped over his own feet and their both rolling down the hill that Sanji is carrying him down.

"What did you just say?" Sanji sputters, and Luffy lays his head down on Sanji's back again and shuts his eyes.

"I said I'm scared. 'Cause I am. Sorry."

"WOULD YOU STOP APOLOGIZING!" Usopp screeches from somewhere below them and Luffy kind of wants to laugh, but not really.

"Sanji, hand him up here," Robin's arms are around him, duplicates, not her own. But they're passing him upward and Sanji is taking off down the hill to pick up Usopp from the bottom and suddenly Luffy is next to Robin and she's helping him as he scrambles up onto Franky's other shoulder.

"I'm not a bus you know," Franky grumbles but Robin just pats his head fondly and leans over it, reaching out and angling Luffy's face to look at her, he holds still and lets her look.

"You said you were scared." She says and he shuts his eyes with a wince, the fire, both good and bad, the ice, poison, burning rubber. That one is so faint, burning rubber, and it doesn't scare him as much as the others but it's so pungent, he hopes he never gets burned again because the scent is irrevocably joined with these memories. He is irrevocably tied to these events. No matter what he does they won't go awa-

"Luffy, don't think about that." He starts again and meets Robin's eyes, then realizes that he'd never looked away, just forgotten that he was doing it. "Luffy you trust me, don't you?"

"Yeah," He says, and he means it, he does. He's just not sure which part of him does, his mind or his body or his heart. Ha, maybe it's his bones. Skull joke.

"And you trust all of us, correct?"

"Definitely." Because he does, really. He's decided now, he does.

"I want you to trust us, trust me. Whatever you think is happening, whatever you thought was going on is very far in the past, do you understand?" He can't make his head wobble a yes because, it just couldn't have been. It couldn't have. Just before, Jinbe, and before that, before that Ace andheatandflamesandlogiasthatburnoneanotherandnooneseemstocarebecausehis brotherisademonbutdoesthatmatterbecausehe'sburning.

"Luffy, Luffy look at me, what are you thinking about?"

"Ace." He opens his eyes, though he doesn't remember closing them, Robin is watching him, she doesn't blink. The world moves around her, around them, not the other way around. It's all very solid in this little bubble. He coughs.

"You shouldn't, Luffy. Think about something better."

"There isn't anything better." He answers and she blinks, frowning at him.

"Nothing better?"

"Ace died in front of me." He tells her and he sees the slightest flinch in her expression, he feels bad, but he can't stop anymore. "He died, right here." He holds out his arms, light flashes and he can see the oily red rivulets running down his arms. "It was my fault, he protected me. I'm too weak to protect him and he was only strong enough to protect one of us and he protected me because I couldn't protect myself." He raises his chin and looks out over all of them, they can't hear him very well, that's alright, he's talking to Robin. "There are nine of us. I can't protect one. Not one. I can't bear to think, I can't-" He chokes on something and he realizes it's emotion, he's crying, again. It's all he seems to do, lately. He's still a crybaby. Stupid. "There's nothing better than only one of us dying. It'll only get worse. I should stop, everyone tells me I should stop but I don't want to. I want to sail and be free and be a pirate like I've always wanted to be, but how can I?" He's raising his voice now, he probably shouldn't, he can't find a way to control the volume. "But I don't think I can, I don't think I can put you guys in that. I can't lose you guys too, I can't lose anyone else. No one. I can't. I need you, everyone." He's shaking, Robin reaches out and holds his hand, he clutches it tightly. He looks up at her, her expression is hard like a shield but soft like a hug.

"Luffy you trust me?" She asks again.

He considers.

"Yes."

She smiles at him warmly, he does his best to copy, it feels like he's taking his first steps all over again.

"Luffy, we can each protect two."

Oh.

"Oh." He says. "Okay, that's good." She smiles and he coughs again, things are getting hazy, his chest burns, does he smell burning rubber? "That's good" he repeats and after a wavering moment it all falls away.

~8~

"I can't believe that just happened."

"Really? You aren't used to it yet?"

"Shut up, Sanji."

"Shut up, both of you! We're not doing this right now, am I clear? We. Are. Not."

"Anything you desire! Nami, my sweetest flower!"

"Oi, now is not the time."

"It's always the time for a man to have the joy of making a woman happy."

"Let's not." They've made it down the mountain now and the town is outright abandoned. That's a good thing because none of them have the energy to run a rescue operation right now and the marines certainly aren't going to do it, they're sailing as far as they can as fast as they can. Cowards, the whole lot.

"Let's just hurry back," Chopper says anxiously "I don't want Luffy breathing any more of this smoke."

"Agreed," Robin says grimly. She'd been most quiet of all of them since Luffy had made his disheartening speech. I want to sail and be free and be a pirate like I've always wanted to be, but how can I? Never had any of them heard words like that from him. Never. They wish they could live for another thirty years and still say never, but they can't anymore.

"I've got two needles pointing to different islands, so it's okay that we haven't been here long enough for this one to set." Nami explains "We can set sail anytime."

"I think Luffy-bro should finish growing up back on the ship," Franky sobs quietly "This islands is bringing us nothing but heartache!"

"Yohoho… I will not miss the idea of my bones burning…" Brook chuckled sadly in a sad attempt to lighten the mood. "As I am entirely bone and losing my bones would not be very good… I would cease to exist, perhaps…"

Zoro stays silent, running solidly behind Nami because she grabbed his coat sleeve a little bit ago and she hasn't let go. They're close so he can hear how ragged her breathing is and the tenuous quality of her voice. It's not because she's running.

"We'll have to tell him." He decides. "That all this happened, he probably won't know."

"Presumably he won't," Robin agrees, "But nothing about this is very predictable. Did we tell you our theory?" She asks and those who don't know what she's talking about shake their heads.

"We've decided it's because he's rubber." Chopper explains "Because rubber is different and useful because it shrinks and expands under pressure…"

"Under pressure?" Usopp repeats, than his eyes widen and he slaps his face. "Pressure. Well crap."

"Are you joking? That's like some kind of cheesy pun! Why would it be so literal!" Nami snaps.

"Luffy-san is very literal himself, I find it fitting!" Brook says cheerily and Robin's second long smile reappears for an instant.

"Would you ever consider the flower-flower fruit to allow me to make my body parts grow like flowers?" Robin teases, "Devil fruits are notoriously unpredictable. Nevertheless, it seems to me that this whole fiasco is some sort of self defense mechanism. Luffy takes on a lot of pressure because he can withstand it, than, all at once, his fruit can't handle it anymore and he shrinks underneath it. As you relieve the pressure he returns to his normal size. It's not too hard to see."

"Not on this sea it's not, but I grew up in East Blue!" Nami groans, but there's a slight smile under her frustration. "That fruit has saved his butt so many times, I guess we're just adding to the list?"

"It almost got him killed!" Usopp argues, "Shrinking a person down to age seven is not saving them."

"Well it certainly saved him a lot of grief over the years." Sanji interjects and Usopp starts counting off circumstances where the fruit was a nuisance. Most had something to do with either drowning or seastone but there was that time he'd gotten stuck between buildings in Water Seven and a few other unusual instances.

"The bottom line is that we can't just let him go on thinking this never happened. It did and we're going to have to tell him."

"I guess," Nami sighs, "But he's been in such a rush for the past few days, it's going to be completely different talking to him about it."

"We've already talked to him about it," Sanji disagrees, "We just have to let him know it happened. We've been talking to him this whole darn time. If you're going to believe the rubber theory than you have to relieve pressure to let rubber expand again, so something that's been happening has been making him feel better. All this stuff we've been seeing? It's honestly in the past now, probably."

"The bright side of all this is that I imagine his blood pressure is lower now," Robin comments "So he's not as close to bursting a blood vessel as you've been fearing, Chopper."

"You're right!" Chopper brightens, "That's a good thing out of all this! I bet Second Gear will work a lot smoother now!"

"Yeah, at least something SUPER came out of this totally not super situation!" Franky is still crying but less now, and he's been shooting around angry and random 'I'm not crying you jerk's around at every one of them.

"Yeah, something good will come out of this," Nami sighs "And after Ace… I'm not sure there's anything left for him to go to."

"I think it's like many of his battles, he's made it to the largest fight after all the lackeys have tried their luck, and like always he's prevailed." Robin runs a feathery touch through Luffy's hair to keep it off his face, it's been getting a little long, she's thinking they'll have to force him into a hair cut soon enough. Things will be returning to their own quirky brand of order very soon, she's quite sure.

~8~

They set sail as soon as every crew member is aboard. They don't even bother packing Luffy away in the infirmary or his hammock, opting instead to lean him against the mast where they can all keep an eye on him, in case the latest development of his predicament isn't quite over yet.

Chopper seems to think it's gone, the X scar is normal, red and tough and two years old, Luffy's face twitches as he sleeps, always upward into smiles and half laughs. They all keep a little more than a quarter of their attention trained on the center deck as they sip out and curl the sails in preparation for a Coup de Burst, just in case.

It's not till a couple of hours later, after he's begun to roll around and has splayed himself over the grass and is snoring loudly, that he lets out a lengthy yawn and opens his eyes and sits up, lazy hand groping around for his hat somewhere on his person.

"Here," Zoro reaches over from his seat leaned against the railing and sets the hat onto Luffy's head who perks up and touches it's brim in confirmation of its presence.

"Shishishi, thanks Zoro!" He sniggers and then raises his head further, looking at the sky and the ship as the crew absently wanders closer. He notices them and beams, "Morning!" He chirps and Nami's face goes deadpan.

"Of course." Luffy frowns at her, tilting his head and then his expression turns stricken.

"Wait, morning?" Luffy scrambles to his feet and looks around wildly. "It's morning! I slept all night?" He stares at the sun, than cries out. "Afternoon! I slept all day! But I was on watch! Oh, Nam- Nami!" He turns around, ramrod straight and watching her cautiously, like a prey animal caught in a predator's den. "I-I didn't sleep all night…" He whistles nervously.

Nami stares at him for another moment before rubbing at her eyes, sighing loudly.

"I know you didn't sleep all night Luffy, it's okay."

"Really! That's great!" He cheers but then goes defensive again. "Is it really? I don't have to pay you or anything right? Cause if I do it was Zoro's fault."

"No, no you don't have to pay anything, it's just… Zoro do we have to do this now?" She turns abruptly and he shrugs, shutting his eyes again.

"I guess not, so long as it happens, and I get a chance to beat his head in for trying to pin this on me." Usopp snickers as Luffy wilts.

"Yeah, we can take care of this discussion later Nami-san," Sanji cuts in smoothly and takes her elbow. "We've all had a busy time of it, we don't have to open this can of worms just now."

"What?" Luffy asks, looking around at all of them, seemingly puzzled as to what has them all so touchy. "Did something happen? Did I miss something? Sorry!" He holds up a hand in apology and smiles bashfully, clinging to his hat. "I don't mean to fall asleep, it's just boring up there, all alone!" He pouts but the smile is back quickly. He watches them for a second and seems to sense that they are still stressing about something, something more serious. "Guys?"

"Nothing, it's just..."

"What?" Luffy presses as Nami trails off.

"You never change." Zoro grunts and Luffy beams up at him, chuckling.

"Good! I like being me!"

"Yep." Zoro offers a sharkish grin in return and Robin gives another second-long smile.

"And we like that too, Captain."


End file.
